[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 7, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2802-S2804]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         ADDRESSING THE HOMEWORK GAP THROUGH THE E-RATE PROGRAM

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise this evening in strong opposition 
to S.J. Res. 7, the Congressional Review Act resolution that would 
repeal the Federal Communications Commission's commonsense rule 
allowing schools and libraries to use E-Rate funds--``E-Rate'' stands 
for ``Education Rate funds''--to ensure that there is access to the 
educational tools of a school or a library to every child in America, 
and that would occur by extending out the way in which we view this 
program so that Wi-Fi hotspots can be provided to students and to 
educators so that they can use them even when they are not in the 
school, even when they are not in the library.
  If we pass this resolution--the resolution which the Republicans are 
malevolently bringing out onto the floor--we are not simply undoing a 
regulation; we are pulling the plug on progress in our country; we are 
abandoning millions of students who lack the internet access needed to 
complete their homework, to attend class, to reach their full 
potential.
  This repeal will widen educational disparities in our country, it 
will deepen the digital divide, and it will slam shut the doors of 
opportunity for millions of children in our country.
  We should be doing everything in our power to close the homework gap 
that exists between rich and poor in our Nation, not reopen it, not 
make that homework gap even larger, making it more difficult for poor 
kids to get access to these educational tools they need. In this modern 
era, that absolutely meets the definition of a Wi-Fi hotspot. That is 
the society of 2025. You have to move to that era.
  That homework gap is the cruel chasm that separates students who have 
reliable internet access at home from those who don't. It is a gap that 
existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was laid bare when 
schools closed and kids were forced to learn from kitchen tables and 
living rooms. For some, the transition was difficult; for others, it 
was impossible. For too many children, especially in low-income, rural, 
and Black and Brown communities, they were locked out of virtual 
learning because, simply, they lacked a basic internet connection.
  You didn't have to worry about the families that had a good income. 
Those kids had internet at home when their schools were shut down 
during COVID. But you had to create some kind of a solution for kids 
who didn't have that at home.
  We saw the stories of the students sitting in parking lots outside 
fast-food restaurants just to pick up a Wi-Fi signal strong enough to 
complete their assignments. We saw families choosing between paying 
rent and paying for broadband. We saw the urgent, indisputable need for 
action.
  In that moment of need, Congress stepped up. We passed, at my 
request, $7 billion to help provide hotspots and other connectivity 
tools to students and educators. Demand was overwhelming in our Nation. 
We had a COVID shutdown. Schools were closed, and there was going to be 
a huge digital divide which would open up because kids in the suburbs, 
for the most

[[Page S2803]]

part, had access, but kids who were poorer--and, disproportionately, 
they were Black and Brown--in our Nation did not. And we are still 
reeling from the effect that period of time had upon young people in 
our Nation.
  The program, as it was implemented, however, helped nearly 18 million 
students at 10,000 schools and libraries connect to the internet. I am 
very proud of that. It was a big difference in the lives of those kids. 
But that funding ran out, leaving millions of students across the 
country at risk of falling back into the digital divide.
  That is why, last year, the Federal Communications Commission took 
steps to extend the reach of the E-Rate Program--a program that I was 
proud to author in 1996 in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
  If I can take you back to that period of time, not one home in 
America had broadband. We still lived in an analog world, not a digital 
world. We lived in a world of dial-up internet technology. Broadband 
had not been deployed.
  So the legislation, which I am proud to have been the House author 
of, along with Senators--what we did was we broke down every monopoly 
that existed. The telephone monopolies, the cable monopolies--they all 
were eliminated. Telephone companies could do what cable companies do. 
Cable companies could do what telephone companies do. All of a sudden, 
Comcast can offer phone service, and Verizon and AT&T can offer cable 
service. So they need to deploy broadband in order to accommodate all 
this information.
  We are going to move very rapidly into a digital era, into a 
broadband era, and it happened pretty much in the blink of an eye for 
about 80 percent of our country. We are still working on the final 10 
percent of our Nation, but for the most part, it happened by the year 
2000, 2001. It was done. People had it. Broadband was deployed.
  But what we did was we said to ourselves: We have got to take care of 
the poorest kids in our country as we move rapidly on a technological 
revolution. Yes, the economy is going to be absolutely exploding. In 
fact, about $1.5 trillion worth of private sector investment was put 
into that broadband expansion in just a 5-year period. It was 
incredible. It transformed our Nation.

  A 14-year-old girl today thinks that she has an entitlement to a 65-
inch screen in her living room and a little digital device on her lap 
at the same time. That didn't exist in the year 2000. It all happened 
in the blink of an eye.
  Now, what would happen, though, to the kids that didn't come from 
suburban or wealthier families? So what I suggested was that we have a 
program, an education program, so that every time someone made a little 
phone call, there would be a little tax on it, and that tax would then 
create a fund. I called it the education fund, the Education Rate, and 
it ultimately just had a nickname called E-Rate. That is what helps to 
provide for internet service in schools--in schools in Harlem or 
Roxbury, MA, inner city, Washington, DC. That is what helps to 
supplement that, to make it possible for every kid to have access to 
the internet.
  That program works, and so far, it has spent about $70 billion. It is 
still the largest educational technology program in the history of the 
United States--$70 billion, very profitable. But times change, and we 
learn about what has to happen as we are changing the way in which our 
country operates and new technologies get developed.
  So, yes, we had that revolution from the 1996 act. I am very proud of 
it. We called the companies that got created Google, eBay, Amazon, 
Hulu, YouTube. I am very proud of that. We wanted a Darwinian, 
paranoia-inducing revolution out in the marketplace. We would no longer 
be tied to this old telecommunications system that Alexander Graham 
Bell would have recognized. No. We were moving on to the future, but 
with it, we had to bring along the young people in our Nation, and I 
mean every young person had to have access to it in their school, at 
their desk. So it was ensured to make sure that the schools and 
libraries had the connectivity which they needed. That is essentially 
what the E-Rate Program is all about.
  But as the technology evolved, so too did the nature of education in 
our Nation, and today, learning doesn't end when the school bell rings. 
Learning follows students home, and so should internet access for 
everybody--everybody.
  The Federal Communications Commission's decision to allow schools and 
libraries to lend Wi-Fi hotspots was not a radical idea; it was a 
responsible idea. It recognized that in the 21st century, a student's 
ability to succeed should not depend on whether their parents can 
afford a broadband subscription. It helped ensure that millions of 
students that relied upon the Emergency Connectivity Fund during the 
pandemic wouldn't suddenly lose access to crucial connectivity at home.
  In other words, the Federal Communications Commission learned from 
what happened during the pandemic, learned from what happened when I 
was able to move over the $7 billion for these Wi-Fi hotspots to help 
kids at home get it, and they said: Well, do you know what we should 
do? We should just make sure that no student is left offline. We will 
make it a permanent program. And they passed that regulation.
  You don't have to take my word for this. In study after study, it has 
been shown that students without access to broadband internet at home 
performed worse than their better educated, better connected 
classmates. It is not that these kids are smarter in the suburbs than 
the kids in the inner city. Those kids are just as smart. But you can't 
allow an education gap because the kids who have access are going to 
get a better education because they have access to the technology by 
which young people in our Nation get their education in the 21st 
century. So you have to make sure everyone gets access to it; 
otherwise, without access to broadband internet at home, those kids are 
going to perform worse than their better connected classmates. It is 
not that their intelligence is less than the kids in the suburbs. It is 
not that they wouldn't study as hard. They would. It is just that they 
don't have access.
  The Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational 
Progress, for example, has repeatedly shown that high-performing 
students had much better access to the internet at home. I don't think 
you have to be Horace Mann--the founder of the public school system in 
the United States--to think that that makes sense. Of course it does.
  In 2023, a study of Michigan students found that a student without 
access to home internet earned significantly lower grades--actually, 
0.6 lower on the 4.0 scale--than their connected classmates. Not 
because they weren't as intelligent. Not because they wouldn't have 
learned equally well on their device. But you need the device. You need 
access. You need a Wi-Fi hotspot. You need internet at home. You need 
something that is going to help you to compete.
  By the way, we have another word for those kids. We call them the 
future of the 21st century in the United States of America. Kids that 
are 20 percent of our population, they are 100 percent of our future. 
We are living in a digital world, and it is a portable skill set that 
every child should be able to take to anywhere they want to go in the 
world for the rest of their lives. It will be a skill set that employs 
them, educates them, makes them better citizens. But you can't reach 
that stage if you are denying it to them when they are 6 years old, 8 
years old, 10 years old, 12 years old, and expect them to be able to 
compete with the kids that come from wealthier families. That is what 
this vote is all about. It is all about that one issue.
  When I was a boy, I had my books. I could take them home. My father 
drove a truck for the Hood Milk company. I would take my books home. 
The school superintendent's kids would bring their books home. I could 
compete against them. Books are equal. That is not the world we live in 
anymore. If you don't have the internet at home, the other kids 
essentially have their books in their knapsack. It is called their 
iPad. They have their home computer. They have access.
  I am only here because it was books and I could compete against any 
kid in Malden, MA, in a blue-collar community. That is why I am a 
Senator. I had never even been to Washington before I got elected to 
the U.S. House of Representatives. That was my first visit to 
Washington. I am 29, 30 years old, but I have been competing because 
you give me the books you give the kid

[[Page S2804]]

whose father is the school superintendent, and I will compete against 
him.
  As a matter of fact, I actually sit here at the desk which Jimmy 
Stewart--``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington''--had in the movie ``Mr. Smith 
Goes to Washington.'' He had never been to Washington. I had never been 
to Washington.
  But it didn't mean you couldn't do a good job if you had access to 
the same tools that young people had in the best school systems in 
America. That is what this debate is all about. It is about ensuring 
that every child has access to the internet through a Wi-Fi hotspot if 
they need it.
  If the school, the library, says we have got to help them at home, 
they don't have it--because that kid will fall behind the kids who have 
it. And it won't have anything to do with their ability, won't have 
anything to with their desire to be a full participant in this great 
American experiment.
  A study using Census Bureau data estimated that individuals with 
greater access to the computer and internet at home spent 28 percent 
more hours learning than those kids without that access. I mean, do we 
really need a study of this? Of course not. We know that is the truth.
  So as this evidence on home connectivity piles up, there is no 
debate: Students without access to internet at home are seriously 
disadvantaged compared to their classmates, plain and simple.
  I identified with this because my father was a truck driver. We 
didn't have trips to the Himalayas. We didn't have some kind of summer 
school at universities to help out my brothers and me when we were 15, 
16, or 17. But we didn't feel deprived because we had the same books as 
the kids in the suburbs, in the private schools. We had the same books; 
and I am going to study as hard as I can.
  Today, that is not possible. If you don't have a Wi-Fi hotspot, you 
can't do it. If you don't have internet at home, you can't do it. You 
might want to do it, but you can't do it. And by the way, they know 
they don't have it. They can see the kids on the other side of town who 
have it. They know it. They are 9; they are 10; they are 11; they are 
12. They know it. That is what this program is all about. It is just to 
say: You have got it; you have got it at home. Go to it. Be whoever you 
can be.
  These Republicans, they are going to vote this program out of 
existence. This is the great equalizer. This is the access to 
opportunity. This is democratization of access to opportunity through 
education, which is supposed to be the foundation of our country.
  You know, when I grew up, I would look at Abe Lincoln and his story. 
I would look at the movies about Abe Lincoln. He would be reading books 
by candlelight in his house on the prairie. That is all you needed, was 
the light, because the book was there. You could do it.
  Well, without a Wi-Fi hotspot, there is nothing to read. Your device 
is not working. You are denying that ambitious, hard-working, 
imaginative, creative young person--by the way, disproportionately 
Black and Brown in our Nation--from having the same opportunities that 
we have provided for 250 years since the dawn of our country.
  So we are putting these young people at a serious disadvantage 
compared to their classmates. So now my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle, they want to just take that tool away. They want to rip the 
hotspots out of students' hands. Why? Let's just listen to a few of 
their arguments.
  First, the Congressional Review Act supporters say: The hotspots rule 
is illegal.
  This is simply untrue. It is not illegal.
  In section 254 of the Communications Act, Congress provided the FCC 
with flexibility to adapt the E-Rate program for changing times and 
educational conditions. How do I know? I am the author of that 
provision. So when people tell me it is illegal, it is not illegal. I 
wrote the provision which says the Federal Communications Commission 
can do this for the children of our Nation.
  Second, the Congressional Review Act supporters argue that the 
hotspots rule endangers students by allowing them to access 
inappropriate content, including on social media.
  False. That is also not true. Under the Children's Internet 
Protection Act, schools and libraries receiving E-Rate dollars must 
ensure that hotspots block or filter images that are obscene or harmful 
to minors.
  By the way, with all the crocodile tears coming down from my 
colleagues on the other side about their concern for children, I have 
had a children's online privacy protection act pending here in the 
Senate for years that gives total privacy protection to children under 
the age of 17 in our Nation, and we can't get it passed.
  Why can't we get it passed? Because too many Republicans are 
concerned about what the big social media companies might say to them.
  Well, where is their concern, then, for the poor child being exposed? 
Not there. They should be more concerned about what Meta is doing to 
them, what Google is doing to them, what those big companies are 
doing--because, under the law, it can't happen under the E-Rate 
dollars. It can't happen. It is illegal. We need another law to pass 
that makes it illegal to let the big social media companies in our 
country do the same thing.

  If my colleagues are really so concerned about children's online 
privacy and safety, I urge them to support my legislation--if they care 
about it--because that would block it.
  Third, they say that the program is wasteful.
  That is false. Again, the hotspots rule limits the amount of money 
that can be requested by an E-Rate applicant and prohibits the 
duplication of the funding. It is all written into the law.
  Let me be clear: This repeal will not save the taxpayer a dime. What 
does the resolution really do? It doesn't make our schools stronger. It 
doesn't make our libraries better. It doesn't improve student outcomes. 
It doesn't lower your taxes. It doesn't save the government money. All 
it does is strip away a lifeline for the children in our Nation who 
need it the most, that they can take it home with them, that they can 
study at home. That is it.
  So this E-Rate expansion didn't just connect students; it connected 
futures. It helped make good on the promise that every child, 
regardless of their income, their race, their geography deserves a fair 
shot at learning, and that promise is worth defending. It is worth 
defending.
  Education is a great equalizer. It is the foundation of our 
democracy, the engine of our economy, and the heartbeat of our shared 
American dream that any child, regardless of where they come from, 
regardless of who their mother and father is, can dream the great 
dreams. But we have to give them access to the tools they need in order 
to maximize all of their God-given abilities.
  In today's world, to be cut off from the digital world is to be cut 
off from education. And that means that broadband is not a luxury; it 
is a necessity. It is an essential tool as much as a textbook or 
schoolbus or a lunch program. This is not a partisan issue. It is not a 
liberal issue. It is not a conservative issue. It is a children's 
issue. It is an American issue. It is who we should be. It is a 
fairness issue.
  I urge my colleagues to not vote to deepen inequality. Instead, vote 
to affirm our values. Vote to defend every child's right to learn, to 
thrive, to reach for the stars. Let's reject this resolution and 
recommit ourselves to closing the homework gap so that all children 
have equal access to learning.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

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