I'm Jonathan K. Parton. Welcome to K-PART. On April 28th, Washington Post live hosted a series

of conversations on digital inclusion. I kicked things off with Christina Ishmael, Deputy Director

of the Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology. We covered a lot of ground in 20

minutes from the importance of access to broadband to the importance of making that access available

to everyone. So there have been big investments to help with the home access divide.

And that is exactly where we are now. And so we through the FCC is a affordable connectivity

program. We know that about 50 million households qualify for free and kind of reduced price

with that stipend that they are providing through the ACP, but only 17 million households have

signed up for it. Ishmael talks about how they are pushing to close that divide, the obstacles to

getting financial assistance where it's most needed, and what she'd ask for if I were a genie

granting her three wishes, her answers were crystal clear. Digital access is pretty fundamental

to all parts of daily life and for broader participation in society. How is access to that digital life,

a key component of education? Yeah. So in March of 2020, when their doors shut to the physical

school buildings, we sent kids home and moved into an emergency remote learning situation.

We realized at that point, of course, that not everyone had home access. And of course,

we had been working in this space, especially within education and within educational technology

for quite some time. The FCC had been working on this prior to the pandemic as well,

but it was that moment that we knew we needed that continuity of learning to continue and provide

some sort of stable learning environment. And not everyone had access to do that. And so that was

that moment that we have certainly looked back on and been able to provide as many resources as

possible to state education agencies as well as to the local school districts and then community

based organizations as well. And so there have been big investments to help with the home access

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