July 1, 2013
Last month, President Obama put forward a bold initiative to connect 99% of American schools with high-speed Internet within the next five years. On Friday, Brendan Sasso of The Hill reports, acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn did her part to kickstart the initiative:
In a statement on Friday, Clyburn said the agency’s proposal answers the president’s call “to close our education system’s bandwidth gap by modernizing the E-Rate program and providing our schools and libraries with a path towards affordable access to high-speed broadband.”
“Since its inception, the E-Rate program has succeeded in connecting nearly all U.S. classrooms to the Internet, and in 2010 we took a number of initial steps to cut red tape and help schools get faster speeds for less money. But now, to ensure a robust future for our children, we must equip them with the necessary tools to compete and flourish in an increasingly global and high tech economy,” she said.