 Hello and welcome everybody good afternoon to everyone who's coming here from from the East Coast and to good morning to all of my are our Western friends we're really really happy to have you with us here for this event today I'm Lisa Guernsey I'm the director of teaching learning and tech in the education policy program at New America. And it is a really thrilling day for for me to be part of this event and to have a moment to introduce just so many amazing people who are going to be with us for this we are today releasing a report. And series of briefs that showcase the real stories of and the hidden technology challenges faced by families with preschool and school aged children and the lead authors of this incredible research Vicki cats and Vicki write out will be laying bare the state of what they're calling being under connected, which is really a new way of thinking about digital equity and what what I would call the real story of the past year of remote learning. So you're also going to hear you can hear a lot about that today and some incredible data but you're also going to hear about some of the positives as well of the past year, learning about what parents have learned about their children's learning, how they have learned together with their kids, what they're looking forward to in the next school year and a lot more. We're going to hear remarks today from acting FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenwurzel we're so thrilled to have her with us from leaders in the education technology and digital inclusion space across the country, including Christopher rush from the US Department of Education, and the mayor of San San Jose, San Ricardo so thrilled that he's with us as well. And then we have just so many leaders and advocates for parents, families and educators in local communities. So, really just thrilled to have you all with us with more than 480 people RSVP for this event which is pretty remarkable given that it's summer break for so many folks and we are just incredibly grateful to you for joining us for this will be recording all of it so I'll be available as a video on YouTube, but we're so glad you're here with us to be part of the conversation and we want to encourage you to participate so feel free to use the chat to say hello to introduce yourself. See who's here. We also have on Twitter, our amazing communications team at New America will be live tweeting this and we're using the hashtag under connected. So you'll see a lot of the conversation and questions there as well so just take full advantage of all of that and then you'll also see that there's a Q amp a box. So that's where to put your questions that our moderators will be teeing up for panelists and others throughout the event. So, if you have a specific question to ask, please put it in the Q amp a box. So if you can go to the next slide for me, Angela. So what we're going to hear about today emerge from an exciting partnership across many institutions and media and research organizations. In particular, and I'll be introducing Vicky and Vicky in a moment and much more depth but this is an incredible partnership with records university or the cats as a professor, and with VGR consulting. We also are so just grateful to have partnerships with community leaders around the country and in specific communities. So this was done with raising a reader tech play collaborative which is Laura Zimmerman's research firm has been a big part of helping us gather at the community level. Big thanks to brilliant Detroit reading ready Pittsburgh Grail Family Services, first five Santa Clara County incredible team and if you go to the next slide you'll see this really amazing group of funders that came together really unusual gathering and quite a collaborative effort across these funders from Noggin early learning media and research organization to Carnegie Corporation of New York Overdeck Family Foundation the Grable Foundation, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation. This could not have happened without you and we're really, really thankful. So if you go to the next slide you'll see that we're going to tee up for you. A video and I'm going to turn that mic over in a moment to make it a maze green vice president vice president for digital consumer insight at Nickelodeon. It's exciting that we have this partnership with Noggin and Nickelodeon on this particular project, and Makeda is going to show you some work that they've been doing to gather some voices and insights as well from, from families. I think this will really set the stage for what we're going to try to understand and grapple with today. And just a quick little intro. Makeda, she's, as I mentioned vice president for consumer digital consumer insight at Nickelodeon she's also worked at her sesame workshop. She's the author of Makeda moving up in media, which is an autobiographical short that details her journey into the children's media industry. And she's the proud mom of three young kids. And she's just total pleasure to work with so we've been really thrilled to have her with us on this so thank you so much for working on this video Makeda and I'm going to let you take it from here. Thank you so much Lisa. I'd like to begin just by saying how absolutely delighted I am to work alongside my esteemed colleague Dr. Michael Levine SVP of learning and impact at Noggin, in support of this critical research offered by Vicki Katz Vicki at Noggin Nickelodeon we have a deep long standing commitment to thought leadership work that drives social impact from shades of us, the study of race identity and the American family to our ongoing research on racial justice. We have embraced the opportunity and responsibility to ensure that all kids are not just seen, but served. This through this lens of inclusivity and the mission to make a meaningful difference that we set forth to help uncover the experiences of school age kids learning at home during COVID. As structural barriers to equitable access gained greater transparency in the media, and became part of a national dialogue, personal stories about the disparities in remote learning environments began to unfold. Families experience transition, tension and varying levels of trepidation. To better understand their perspective, we went into the field to gather our own firsthand accounts of how kids and families are engaging with technology during this period of educational disruption. Families candidly shared some of the highs, including one parents having greater insight into what and how their children are learning, and two, noting the opportunity to co engage with educational media resources. And families also shared some lows, largely centered on parents stress and trying to manage a household, as well as their child's day to day school schedule. In addition to the crippling challenge of trying to get online, but being under connected. In the following video you'll hear from kids and parents in their own words. It will get disconnected a lot. And I was having a lot of issues with the internet, I don't know why, but we had never had the problem but ever since the kids started like going to school I don't know if many people are using the internet crashes, I'm not sure. And I got in contact with the school, telling them about my problem, and they're like, we could get you a hotspot, but there's a wait list. I didn't end up getting that hotspot probably till like four months after. We actually changed providers, made of this because it got real bad we were a sudden link, and their service became really choppy and they also said they were really really busy and they were trying to provide internet service to the school which is near us. So they would have students out in the parking lot trying to do stuff because they didn't have internet at home or whatever, but it got really bad. What she would tell me is that mommy go and get 5G network, this one is not working. I usually go on Microsoft Teams and it would always say hold on, like my wifi is going like out or something, like going really bad. Sometimes the power goes down and stuff, so I think that might be like a true connection that's not happening. Well, I wasn't able to do my schoolwork, but I was able to play games a little bit. And then when the power goes back on, I actually did my, I go back to my assignments. So, we were on meeting, and then it's the screen, they went back in, it said you had no connection. So as you can see the pandemic further exacerbated the deep disparities in digital access, particularly as it relates to remote learning. In short, to effectively engage in online learning students need to be online. Through the insight shared in today's presentation will hear more about the quantifiable impact on children's experiences and learn from experts about pivotal next steps. In particular, you'll hear from my colleague Michael who will talk more about the work Noggin is doing to offer a wide variety of no cost and low bandwidth programming in response to COVID. And he'll provide some specific field responses in the final forum session. Collectively, we can transform this moment of digital disparity into a movement toward equitable access. Thank you so much for your time and special thanks to my additional Noggin and Nickelodeon colleagues, Winnie Chung, Israel for us, Ron Geresey, Kristen K, and Daniel Ramos. Thank you so much, my kid of the voices and the faces is just the real authentic stories that came from that video is incredibly important so I'm so glad to have you. It's a great opportunity to see that. So now we're going to be able to go on to the findings from this incredible report and I'm going to quickly introduce Vicki Katz and Vicki write out and then they're going to take it from here. Such a thrill to work with these two who have known for over a decade and I've learned a ton from both back in my days as a reporter all the way up to now. Katz is an associate professor in the School of Communication Information at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on how digital inequality affects access to learning opportunities and family technology engagement and low income and immigrant families. I'm right at the bull's eye of this work today. And she is a co-author with the amazing Vicki write out of Opportunity for All with a question mark which came out more than five years ago now and gave us the first wave of data. So I think they may describe some of that as well as you'll see in their findings. Victoria write out such a thrill Vicki to have you with us as well. She's president of the JR Consulting where she conducts research on children and media for academic and nonprofit organizations. Vicki's recent work includes studies about teens use of the Internet for health information about digital media use among infants and toddlers and media use among 8 to 18 year olds. And from 97 to 2010 she directed the Kaiser Family Foundations Program for the study of media and health, which is where I first met Vicki as well. So a big thanks to you both and I'm going to turn it over to you now. Thank you so much Lisa and thanks to all of you for being here today. If we can go to my first slide. The research that we're presenting today is a survey of more than 1000 parents with children ages three to 13 so from preschool up through elementary or middle school. It was conducted exactly one year into the pandemic shutdown in the United States in March and April of 2021. So we're able to offer parents a chance to reflect back at their pandemic based learning experiences, as well as to look forward as society began to open up to the next And there are just a couple aspects of the methodology that I want to mention. First, we focus exclusively on families with incomes below the national median of $75,000 for families. So this lets us really home in on the experiences of this particular segment of the population so we can see what are the experiences of the millions of children whose parents didn't graduate from high school, or the families with incomes below poverty level, or of Hispanic children with parents who are immigrant. Second, it's a probability based sample in a lot of surveys respondents are recruited through methods like pop up ads online. And that really doesn't yield a very represented sample especially for a survey like this, and a probability based sample uses techniques like random digit telephone dialing or address based sampling to ensure that the findings more accurately reflect the experiences of the relevant population. Third, it was conducted by telephone, rather than online. And we really believe that a study of digital inequality and its effects is inherently more inclusive when participating in the study does not require using those very same technologies. And then finally as Lisa mentioned this survey updates another one that both Vicki and I conducted using the same methodology in 2015 that we did in partnership with the Joan Gantz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. And that means we're able to track changes over time. And if you can go to the next slide. Now to the findings. So, first, just the basics of internet access. We found that one in seven children, 15% below the median income still does not have broadband internet access at home. Even after everything that we've been through this past year, one in four children and families with incomes below the poverty level does not have home access. One in four children of immigrant Hispanic parents does not have internet access. And three in 10 children whose parents didn't graduate from high school, don't have home access. This means these families are relying on mobile only internet. In other words, a data plan on a smartphone or dial up access, or in some cases, no access at all. So if you can go to the next slide. Equally important, as those who are totally unconnected. There are huge numbers of families who are under connected in ways that have major implications for children schooling. This chart you see even among families with with computers, or with broadband internet at home, a majority report insufficient and unreliable access to the internet and devices, and this is the group we call the under connected. And in this chart we're breaking it out by those families with the low poverty level incomes, and those families with incomes above poverty, but still below the median. So like here you can see, this is the proportion who say, yes, they have a computer, but it doesn't work very well, or it runs too slowly, or it's hard to get time on it because there are too many people sharing it. And next if you click again, these are among families who have broadband home internet service, but more than half in both income groups say oh their services too slow for everybody in the household to do what they need to do. So 31% of those with incomes below poverty, who currently do have home internet, say their service was cut off at least once in the past 12 months, because they couldn't pay the bill. Okay, so this is the group where 25% don't have home access of those who do have it 31% say it's been cut off in the past year, at least once because they couldn't pay for it. And that is what it means to be under connected a lack of reliable sufficient consistent access. And next, we look at the people who are relying on data plans on a mobile device and you see here that large numbers report, either hitting the limits on their data plans, and being unable to go online for the rest of the month even even on their having to share their smartphone among too many people, or again having their phone service caught off completely at least once in the past 12 months because they couldn't pay for it. In the next slide. We also found that this lack of consistent connection has had a direct impact on students who were learning remotely this year. 53% experienced disruptions in their education due to being under connected, whether because of insufficient internet access or insufficient device access. And as you see with these blue dots here, the type and quality of a family's internet access has a direct impact on students school participation so in the right hand. In the blue dot there you see parents with mobile only or dial up internet. Half of them said that a lack of internet access prevented their children from participating in class or completing their school work, at least once at some point over the past year, compared with 32% of those who have broadband at home, which is still an incredibly high number right because those with broadband many of them are under connected as well. And it is the children in the lowest income households with children of color, the children of immigrants who were the hardest hit. And if we go to the next slide you can see how that played out in terms of race and ethnicity in this chart. So all families with incomes below the median, but there are stark differences in the likelihood that a lack of digital access will have caused children to miss school, or be unable to complete their work by the race or ethnicity of the parent. So far what you've been hearing about from me from this survey concerns deficits and divides if you will go to the next slide. But we also as Lisa said documented a lot of strengths and assets, new capabilities that parents developed during the past year, how parents and children help each other with technology. The role of informal educational media and families lives and we look to the future for parents priorities for their children schooling next year. And these are some of the findings that my partner, Vicki Katz is going to share with you now. Vicki. Thank you so much everybody for joining us today. And as Vicki just discussed, remote learning has been enormously challenging for children and families this year. And those challenges are rightfully where educators and policymakers have been focusing most of their attention. But like she's also just mentioned. We also think it's important that we balance those concerns with uncovering what parents have learned this year. Even the most challenging circumstances can still be opportunities to learn new skills and develop greater confidence. And if we go to the next slide, you'll see a note from one of the mothers who participated in our focus groups in Santa Clara about what she's learned this year. What we found in our survey, if we go to the next slide is more about what parents have learned this year. If we look at the top two bars here. You'll see that 44% of parents feel more confident helping their child with schoolwork today than they did a year ago. And 43% are more comfortable communicating with their children's teachers than they were before the pandemic. It's also worth noting the red bars on the other end of those two, where there's almost one in three parents who disagreed with each of those statements, suggesting that while remote learning has necessitated much closer communication between parents and teachers, that educators still need to prioritize strengthening relationships with parents to ensure smooth transitions to in person schooling after the summer break. The bottom two bars here show very good news. 62% of parents agree that they know more about what their child is learning in school now than they did before the pandemic. And a full two thirds of parents agree that they know more about their child strengths and weaknesses as a learner now than they did before the pandemic. These forms of deeper parental knowledge can benefit children in the fall transition to in person learning, and they should be treated as important new family assets. Our survey on the next slide, sorry. Yes, our survey captured some other important family learning practices from this pandemic year as well. We asked parents how often their children had watched educational TV shows or online videos, played educational games, or done creative activities like making art or music on their digital devices. More than seven in 10 surveyed parents said their children use these types of educational media, and about one in three use them often. More than nine in 10 of the parents whose children use educational media often say these learning resources help to keep their kids learning and growing during the pandemic. And these educational media were most important to children in the lowest income families. For example, 41% of children in households of incomes below the federal poverty line often watch educational videos online, compared with 29% of children in lower income families whose incomes are above the federal poverty line. We also asked parents of six to 13 year olds whether their children had watched any TV shows or videos that helped them explain the pandemic to their children. 40% said they had and most found that content helpful, as you can see in this quote from a grandmother who participated in our Pittsburgh focus groups. And furthermore, black and Hispanic children and children whose family incomes are below the poverty level are more likely to have watched pandemic related educational programming and so found it helpful than our white parents and parents whose incomes are above the federal poverty level. So taken together, these findings suggest that educational media weren't important to keeping kids and lower income families learning and growing this year, and to explaining the pandemic to them, and that these media were especially important supports for families that are most likely to have been under connected. Those with the lowest incomes and families of color. On the next slide. We had resources to keep kids learning and growing at home included reading materials to with schools and libraries closed. There were many questions about how the pandemic would affect children's access to books. Our survey identified some important shifts in reading practices amongst lower income families. Many parents, especially Hispanic parents and those with below poverty income levels, found it harder to access print books during the pandemic than they had before. For instance, 41% turned to ebooks more often. And that was especially true amongst families of color. Half of Hispanic and black children are reading ebooks more now than they did before the pandemic, compared with just under one third of white children. And ebook use also varied by age of the children. Almost half of six to 13 year olds were using ebooks more often since the pandemic, compared with one fifth of children ages three to five, suggesting some parental resistance to ebook use with their preschool age kids. Two thirds of parents also said that the pandemic has not affected how often they read with their children, but about one quarter say they're reading more with their kids than they did before the pandemic began. And black and Hispanic parents are significantly more likely to be reading with their kids more frequently than they were before. And they're significantly more likely to be doing that than white children, suggesting another family asset that educators can use to strengthen home school connections and their transitions in the fall. On the next slide, we note that we also looked at one more aspect of children learning at home with their families, which is how parents, children and siblings rely on each other to learn about and with technology. And I see same questions in our 2015 survey of lower income parents and found that family members frequently relied on each other as technology learning partners. Parents guide children, but children also guide parents and siblings learn together to at very high rates, who guides who most varies by parents education level by race and ethnicity by immigrant generation and by the age of children, since parents rely more on their older children than their youngest ones. These patterns persist in 2021, but we find that parents and children help each other learn with technology even more today than they did in 2015. For example, 55% of parents with 10 to 13 year olds help their child with technology as often as they rely on their children's assistance. Those kinds of fluid exchanges of learner and expert roles are powerful opportunities for both generations to develop tech related skills and confidence. And siblings are also helping each other learn about computers and other digital devices more today than they were in 2015. On the next slide, while our survey asked parents to look back on their experiences during this pandemic year, we also asked them to look forward to a fall where, thanks to the rapid proliferation of vaccines, it's become possible to plan for a fully in person return to school. We asked parents, after all the educational disruptions the pandemic has caused this past year, what do you think will be most important for your child at school next year. We gave them five possible priorities, as well as the option to provide an answer in their own words. We provided parents with two priorities that were academic, one that was physical and two that were socio emotional. Despite all the public attention that's being paid to learning loss during the pandemic, a majority of parents selected socio emotional priorities as the most important for their children as you can see here. For parents whose child will be entering preschool or kindergarten in fall of 2021. Six in 10 selected either spending time with other kids or learning how to manage and express their emotions as their most important priority for their child for the coming year, compared with one third who selected either learning how to read or learning their careers. Among parents whose child will be entering first grade or higher half chose either social and emotional well being or spending time with other kids as their most important priority, compared with one third who chose an academic priority, either reading and writing, or science and math. The remainder of both groups chose physical activity as the most important thing for their children. These findings don't imply that academics are not important to parents, because reading was the number two priority amongst parents in both age groups. But they do show that parents are deeply concerned about their children's socialization after more than a year of remote learning and social distancing. On my final slide. The first quote here from a parent who participated in a Detroit focus group offers a clue as to why this might be the case. The parents don't think their child is behind in relative terms, because all children have been through the same challenges during this pandemic. And the open ended answers that 400 survey parents chose to share with us reflected the same concerns about their children being happy, safe, and learning to love learning again, as the quote on the right shows. I'm sure that a smooth transition will occur from learning at home to learning at school. It will be critical for educators to establish clear priorities for the upcoming school year that align with parents most pressing developmental concerns for their own children. Thank you so much for being here everyone. Thank you so much, Vicki and Vicki it's just an honor at New America for us to be publishing this this work and I just want to say a big, a really big thank you to you both. So we now have the also incredible honor to have a keynote speaker with us who knows this issue inside and out and who could be I don't I don't think there is a better speaker to follow this out there in our country right now who can both respond to the data that you've provided but also give us a roadmap for what policy makers can do to make things better for families and and for their children. So I'm really thrilled to be now introducing Jessica Rosenwurzel, who is our acting Federal Communications Commission chairwoman. She has been a strong voice and national champion of digital equity for years, working to ensure that Americans get a fair shot at success in the 21st century. She's coined the term the homework gap that I'm sure we'll be talking about in our panels, and she's led in that neutrality debate she's been elected leader and spectrum policy and many of my colleagues on the biology institute know her work and that very well, and has been of course, focused as well on expanding the reach of broadband to schools and libraries she was appointed to the Commission during the Obama administration and in January of this year President Biden appointed her as acting chair and that'll be official once confirmed by the Senate, and we're just so thrilled to have Jessica Rosenwurzel with us today. So thank you so much for being here and we're excited to hear your remarks. Over to you. Thank you, Lisa. And hello everyone. I want to thank New America for inviting me to be a part of this event. Thank you also New America for supporting the absolutely vital survey research that we are discussing today. It's really important. So if you're here right now, you probably know deep in your bones that too many students in this country struggle with their education when they don't have access to high speed Internet service at home. And this especially cruel part of the digital divide, which I call the homework gap has been a problem for years. But the pandemic has really raised the stakes, because when schools shut down and we messed up. Many of us turned our kitchen tables into online classrooms and I can speak from personal experience it was not easy. But those of us here today right now are the lucky ones because the odds are we had broadband at home. And some months back there was this picture that went viral maybe you saw it, it raced around the Internet and it featured two young girls sitting outside of Taco Bell in California. And they were not there for lunch. They were cross legged on the hard cement ground with laptops perched on their knees, using the free Wi Fi signal from the restaurant to do their schoolwork. But these kids were not alone because across the country we saw students sitting in cars outside of libraries to catch a signal to go online for class. And others cobble together the connectivity they needed by doing everything from borrowing mobile phones to lingering outside shuttered schools and municipal buildings. In fact there's no shortage of this type of anecdotal evidence demonstrating the challenge presented by the homework gap during the pandemic. But what has been lacking is empirical data. What's been missing is information about what has changed about student connectivity during this time and where the biggest challenges remain. And today New America is stepping forward with really valuable new research that answers some of those questions. The survey data tells us that we've made progress in closing the homework gap. But when you dig deeper there is still a lot of work to do. And of course you just got an overview of the reports key findings from our dual Vicki Dynamos, Dr Vicki Katz and Vicki writeouts, but I want to amplify some of the facts that jumped out for me. Now of course the top line number is that one in seven students in the United States do not have broadband at home and one in eight do not have a computer. But the really sobering news from New America's report is that even with our success in shrinking the number of Americans who are unconnected, we still have a really big problem with people who are under connected. And this problem has a lot of different dimensions, but let's start with this. 56% of the families with a home broadband connection said their service was too slow. That's right. The majority of the households lucky enough to have home broadband service in the survey suggested they need faster service. And despite overall increases in the rate of home broadband adoption and computer access, the proportion of lower income families who are under connected is not really budged at all between 2015 and 2021. New America's research finds that this under connection problem has real consequences because parents with mobile only or dial up service where 63% more likely to say that a lack of internet access kept their children from completing school work than families with home broadband service. So let me be really clear. We have to fix this. We have to address the homework gap. We have to recognize that as we exit this pandemic, education has changed like so much else in our lives. It has been digitized. There are new ways of teaching, learning, researching and collaborating that we will take with us out of this period. And when we do, we need to ensure that every student gets the connectivity they need to thrive. So no child is left offline. Now the good news is that the FCC is moving forward with a new initiative that I really believe meets this moment. This May, the FCC adopted rules to set up a new emergency connectivity fund. By any measure, this is a big deal. It's the largest single effort in our nation's history to make sure students have access to the broadband and devices they need for school. And established by the American Rescue Plan, this new fund will help close the homework gap so kids who have been locked out of remote learning can go online for class and do any kind of nightly schoolwork that requires internet access. Plus it will make it possible for libraries nationwide to offer their patrons, including students, new ways to go online and bring connectivity home. On June 29, which is just five days from now, the application window for the emergency connectivity fund will open and schools and libraries nationwide can apply. And opening this window will start the process of awarding $7.17 billion in funds to support the purchase of laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers and broadband connections for off campus use to serve the unmet needs of students, school staff and library patrons. So this application window is going to be open for 45 days. So let me right here right now encourage all interested schools and libraries to start gearing up so they can take advantage of this opportunity. And I'd encourage everyone watching to spread the word about the emergency connectivity fund. It's going to take a huge push over the next several weeks. But with your help, I know we can maximize the impact of this historic investment. And while the emergency connectivity fund may be the FCC's biggest new effort that speaks to New America's report on learning at home, it's not the only one. Because not surprisingly, your research found that cost is the biggest reason why many families lack internet at home. And to help all Americans support broadband service during the pandemic. The FCC launched the emergency broadband benefit program. Last month, with a $3.2 billion budget from Congress, this is by far the largest ever broadband affordability program the United States has ever had. And while it's not student centric, there's a lot of good it can do for students and it's available right now. So many households can receive discounts of up to $50 a month for broadband service and up to $75 a month on tribal lands and participants can also receive a one time discount of up to $100 on a computer or tablet. Now, we've already enrolled millions of households in the emergency broadband benefit program. But again, we need to get the word out. So if you know of a low income household that finds themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. The emergency broadband benefit program is here to help. So let me close with this. New America's research is obviously valuable for the insights that offers. But I think one of the greatest values of this report is that it is the call to action for the homework gap that we need right now. Because we can't let interest in this subject fade over the summer or diminish in the fall when in person learning returns. They're going to be people who just want to move on, who will want things to snap back, just go back to the way they were. I don't think we can let that happen. We need to turn the pain of the pandemic into purpose and recognize that closing the homework gap is a moral obligation and an economic imperative. And I'm really gratified that we have made progress in recent years, but we have further to go. Because over the past year, young people across this country have so inspired us with their grit as they found creative ways to go online and keep up with school. It's time we showed that same kind of perseverance and creativity to close the homework gap once and for all. So let's get to work. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chairwoman, such a pleasure to hear those remarks activating really pushes us all and the emergency broadband benefit and the emergency connectivity fund it couldn't be better timing to really accelerate our understanding of those so so thank you again. So we are now have a chance to really unpack a lot of this in a deeper way and I'm going to introduce you now to the moderator of our first panel, the incomparable Anya Kevinettes and MPR reporter, the author of the art of reading time and and other books as well and a new book that's coming on the way that's about this past school year so on is right in the thick of this, and I will then introduce our panelists and we'll be tracking the q amp a box so definitely I'm thanks so much for those of you who already have questions that you put in there on you will be tracking those questions and we'll be adding those to the end of the panel so I'm going to turn it over now to you on yet to introduce everyone else. Thank you Lisa. It's so great to be here virtually with this incredible brain trust of people who share so many concerns about children's learning their access and you know the kids that that we don't think about enough. It was so, it was so great to hear from Vicky and Vicky about their research designs always so thoughtful and the way that they you know just something as simple as designing it as a phone, so that survey. Really important to hearing from the families that we don't often hear from. So I'm joined right now by Sam Ricardo the mayor of San Jose. And first of her rush, who works for US Department of Education as the senior advisor for innovation and the director of educational technology. And by to folks from the nonprofit policy world, Jean Claude Bressard who's the CEO of digital promise, and Amy Huffman who's the director of policy at the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. So we let this stuff sink in. We're going to go to the mayor first and ask, you know, how did this land for you is this jibing with the challenges that you're seeing in San Jose, and also what you've been able to accomplish. And, and what are your main action items for under connected families in the coming months the coming school year. Well thanks on yet. I think for so many people who have been working in this space. This report really validates and confirms what we've known, which is this digital divide has severe impacts on so many families in our communities, and particularly on our children, and certainly limiting their educational and economic opportunities for the rest of their lives. This is an urgent issue. And there's something good that has come out of the pandemic is that it has reinforced the urgency and really enabled many of us to get some red tape out of the way with the addition of some federal emergency dollars at the right moment has enabled a lot of cities to make key investments. And here in San Jose, you would think that the heart of Silicon Valley is the largest city in Silicon Valley we would have solved this problem long time ago. But that wasn't the case. We discovered the size of our digital divide about three or four years ago when we conducted the study Stanford ground more than 100,000 residents in our city of a million, still lacking in broadband connectivity at home. The best thing, and really with the benefit of some of the dollars that have come through in the last year or so really rapidly expanding connectivity of course we have a community Wi Fi program east side of our city and now has reached more than 100,000 residents Wi Fi and boosters, and we're also distributing hotspots by 16,000 households. So the good news is that we have largely eliminated the connectivity challenge for our students. About 99% of our students we think are now connected, which is positive news and this build out of the community Wi Fi is moving along quickly by the end of next year we'll have connected about 300,000 residents, and the least communities of our city and and that's a city 300,000 we'd be about the equivalent of the size of a Pittsburgh or St. Louis so it's a large population obviously in their city within our city of a million. Obviously there are other dimensions of this divide, we know that we need devices and we need skills. And we've had rely on a lot of philanthropy and some public private partnerships to get devices in the hands of a lot of students we've managed to reduce that gap by about 90% over the last year and a half so we're from 67,000 students need devices about 5000 more work to do obviously and of course skills and this is the really big challenge that we were able to engage with the industry about three years ago in a series of contracts agreements that enabled us to get some resources for digital equity programs and digital inclusion fund that really invest in skills, but it required, of course, that we build out small cells and our small cell network rapidly, which is important obviously the whole community anyway. So, we thought through that agreement that was a good pattern for other cities to follow and a lot of other cities were eager to do so. And the Trump era FCC and I would say it's very distinguished from our current chairwoman at past some regulations that now make it impossible for other cities to fall suit. And so we are hoping that other cities will be able to sign those kinds of agreements with the horizons and the ATTs that enable them to build out small cells rapidly and still get dollars. So we're investing about $2 million over the last couple years and digital inclusion programs to help low income families get skills to be able to protect their families from cybercrime to enable parents to be able to assist their kids and obviously search for jobs and get health information. It really shows that we need a lot of different sources here there's no one source that's going to do it one time money from federal government's great but we know we're going to need ongoing resources. So we look forward to working with so many of the great partners here on that are participating in this discussion to see how we can do that more comprehensively throughout the country. Thank you so much thanks for giving us that glimpse of the complexities of the work as well as the progress and continue on that theme theme of progress. Jean-Claude you know that there's obviously gaps here but there's also a lot of progress documented in this report, not only providing devices providing Wi-Fi hotspots, but also this theme of parent engagement which I find so fascinating right so and I've heard so much about this. In my book research you know that the barriers between school and home in some ways opening up teachers getting to see students home settings and building those relationships. Can you share some of the success stories over the past 15 months with the schools in your network. I can talk quite a bit to that. Let me start first of all by highlighting perhaps one of the most successful partnerships that we've been leading at Digital Partners with Verizon. We're closing in on 600 schools in 32 states who have demonstrated what it looks like. And with the partnership schools have been getting for the last number of years access to hardware hotspots for three years. And those devices and hotspots go home with the child so the acting chairman talks about the homework gap. You see the kind of full integration of the technology in the school and the fact that parents have seen access and had access to this also at home. So when in pandemic head, there was seamlessly seamless pivot from day school in school to online to online schooling. One important part of all of this is that the integration of the technology of the devices into the academic curriculum has been seamless in those those experiences. So leadership at the school district tech support that exists for the parents and for the child and for the school, but more importantly full integration of the devices and hardware into the academic working classrooms provided that kind of seamless view of the work. What we also saw was that parents in those schools always had access and a view into the curriculum into the pedagogy in the classroom. So for them this was an easy translation if that if that makes sense. So what I what I see now which worries me a little bit is that we talk about devices. Yes, in access to the internet, but the integration into the fabric of the child's life in school and out of school has to be a fundamental part of this kind of effort. Last thing I'll push is that the consortium of Education Fund is a Florida did a landscaping of Florida looking at this issue. Very similar findings we saw in the report in the push, but it also found some amazing practices that happened in the past year that can be highlighted if you look at the website you'll see some of the findings that he actually had. The other one was funded by the bar foundation and looking at school districts across the country, and they have this report called hop skip and leapfrog. So the kinds of innovations we saw in the past year also highlighted in those in those in full school districts. So bottom line is wonderful things have happened for those places that did the best already had an orientation and a DNA toward this kind of this kind of engagement. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah, progress doesn't come from scratch. Yes. So, Amy, this, this panel is introducing, and this event is introducing a term that's new to me which is under connectedness. Right. And, and it's similar I think to to something like housing and security or food insecurity we're not just measuring the lack of something but you're measuring, you know, the the inconsistency of it or you know the worry that it's going to get cut off. And in some ways this is like the most frustrating dimension, because it's not in the last mile right it's the last few inches. And I remember chatting with a high school student in the very early days of pandemic and his camera had reversed the image so he's appearing upside down every time he joins a video chat and like that alone with stopping him from turning his camera on and participating in class and how do we kind of close this frustrating last few inches and, and, and how does this play into digital equity. Thank you Anya for the question and thank you to Lisa in New America for having me on this incredibly distinguished panel it's such an honor to be here. I'm really thankful to New America for naming this term right. I haven't been personally calling it a lack of a meaningful connection right so if you can't mean if you don't have if you only have one computer in the home and five people are trying to use it that's not a meaningful device in the home right. So I really love that there's now a term that we can all get behind being under connected so I think that's, you know, first kudos to New America for that. But it's definitely plays into digital equity so digital equity is our goal we want the United States to be a digitally equitable place we want every resident every student to have all the technology and the tools and the skills that they need to thrive right about thriving it's not just about, you know, surviving. And we believe that in the idea that it's digital equity is not only essential it's necessary for full participation in our society democracy and economy and that includes lifelong learning right that includes education. And then digital inclusion is how we get to that goal just to sort of level set this under connectedness this really gets at what we learned through the pandemic that it's not just about getting people the pipes and wires. It's not just about getting the cost down or getting people a subsidy to get the service in the home. We love the emergency broadband benefit we think it's great. But that's not going to be enough right, we need to get people the skills, and not only do we need to get people the skills, we need to make sure that people have someone that they can turn to when they have questions about where to, you know, how to get internet in their home, how to get access to that emergency broadband benefit, where to get a computer in their community. And so what we found through the pandemic is that there really needs to be boots on the ground, community based solutions. Folks throughout the community that are helping navigate people to those solutions. And that's how we're going to finish that last and we've been calling that digital navigators, but it you can call it what you want, right. But we just really believe that there is a human touch that's required to help us get that last inch closed and to make sure that those under connected folks get connected fully. Yeah, that's a really good point. And there's some interesting conversation going on in the chat about the term of under connected and its origins. So, just plus one, something that Amy said, I, you know, really this investment boots in the ground is so essential and having trusted community organizations and see like San Jose were 40% or perform born, really important to have this community organizations that are culturally competent and speak all the languages that we need to speak in the diversity and let's face it all of our cities are diverse. Really important to invest in those community organizations and we're able to do that through the digital inclusion plan, but most cities don't have that source and that's really critical. That's just a great segue into what we're going to get to you which is who owns the push to connect the under connected right I mean we're hearing we have a local official here we have nonprofit partners we have illusions to the role of private companies. And we heard from a federal official now we're going to hear from someone else in the federal government and you know my question to Christopher is about kind of like how do we make this transition and what is the role of education, in particular I think we've already heard some hints about that as to, it is about skills it is about, you know who's going to be the community partners and our schools those community partners to get families connected. Yeah. I mean, first I want to thank everybody and it's just fabulous conversation that's happening this arena. When I look at what needs to happen for to establish more of sort of this digital infrastructure in place. I think we actually have to take a step back and look at a broader set of issues so I sort of have in five areas separate from just basic training and usability that go towards that and I think we started to talk about a number of those. So, for me the first is, is affordability, right, and I, and what Jessica was talking about my colleague about some of the broadband programs that we've put out there. I'm very proud of those, I think those are very encouraging and those are very helpful, but it's just one piece of the puzzle, and on top of that it's just sort of a temporary piece of the puzzle we need to think about longer term sustainability, because relief money doesn't last forever it will run out. The area here is around availability of high speed access and I think that goes to this theme of under connectedness right there are some places that claim folks have high speed access, but they don't actually have true high speed access in order to do the work that they need. And we need to think about that in general, and we need to think about that availability, not just because I can I afford to pay for that. Is it even coming to my house, is it even coming to the places that I am. And we really need to look at this like any other utility any place that a kid lives in this country any place that a family is in this country needs to have high speed access, and just as we would expect they have access to electricity and running water. This is sort of the, this is the running water of digital learning and learning in the 21st century. Now, all those things that we get to the third area which is about ongoing access to sort of modern devices I think there's lots of places that sort of start to claim that they've closed the digital divide and the reality is, they've closed the digital divide folks, but those devices needs to be maintained she gave the example of the kid who had the webcam that was flipping the image. Even though they had a device that could do it there has to be some way that you can use that device and then on top of that that device ages, and therefore, if we're not paying attention to this if we're thinking about this is a single moment in time, then even if we are able to close that divide, it's just a matter of months until that divide opens back up and we need policy that thinks about how that is done and sustain them all ongoing life. And just my fourth issue is just fundamentally, we need policy that goes towards the rapidly evolving nature of technology, not just to maintain what's there, not just to achieve a certain benchmark of what is high speed access or what but that is looking forward and doesn't become stale. I tend to think about this in the ways that I think about sort of the minimum wage regulation that exists out there and it used to be that a minimum wage establish a certain baseline of what you could do in this country, what you could afford. And that has started to slip. We need to make sure that from a technological standpoint, whatever is put in place has some time of reviewing and regularly updating that hits a certain standard. And that standard doesn't become stale. And then the last area that I won the highlighter relation to this is data security and data privacy. We've gone through this race to get devices out. We've gone through this race to try to get hotspots and access to high speed. We've gone through this way, internet, but the reality of that is we've sort of forgotten about the reality of security and privacy and I see LEAs and SCAs coming out there and putting in place, the best policies they can, but security doesn't just happen by itself, and it's one of those things that's easy to ignore until something really goes wrong. And right now with the different policies that are getting put in place, it's happening in a patchwork kind of way. And the best that people can do. But by definition, when security is set up in patchwork setups, it means there are gaps. It means there are inconsistencies in there are holes. And in the world of security, it's almost like you didn't have any security at all when there's big gaping holes that are there. So we're going to need some sort of national policy and regulation that tries to put this patchwork together. And if we don't think about all of these dimensions together, and putting together a solid digital infrastructure for learning, we're going to have a problem I think of it very much of like I can have all the parts of a car, but I need four wheels and until I have four wheels that car isn't going anywhere. Or it's a really rocky journey, and I don't want to ride in that car. So we need to figure out how we attack and address all of these areas if we're going to set up a solid digital infrastructure and I think this infrastructure bill that's being put forth and negotiated actively right now is a good step instead of resources towards contributing to that but it won't be everything and we're all going to have to work together. It'll be government it'll be philanthropy it'll be partners such as the folks here to make this all happen. Such great points, I just want to hopefully amplify and not obfuscate but when you talk about you know security and privacy I also think about digital citizen citizenship. Right I think about the Supreme Court's recent decision about what a teenager can and can't say about her school online and is that a school concern. Because yes in some cases no, as well as the conversation we're having about radicalization online, and that's really important and gets also to the core of what schools do right, promoting democracy promoting digital citizenship and how we engage with information, which also you know it once once the schools are taking responsibility for putting those devices and connecting kids and delivering and engaging kids online when they're at home you know all of this becomes the domain, I think in some ways. Yeah I think there's this whole world on sort of the training, the engagement aspect this digital citizenship and literacy, which I'll take even one step further to censorship that's starting to happen right we just last week, made you the 18th of federal holiday and there's a number of states where we can actually describe what that holiday is to folks because some of the censorship that happens there so as soon as you end up in this world of engaging in digital citizenship and literacy. I think you also have to get to this censorship space and about what we can teach and not teach, and what we start blocking digitally because of that reality, Jean-Claude you started to comment as well. I wanted to add to a couple of points you made, Chris, one just first point about sustainability. There was a report from the Boston Consulting Group that said it needed about $6 to $9 billion to close to initially close the gap, but $4 billion annually to maintain. This is not a one time thing to Chris's point. One of the reasons I go back to school I mean I'm a former school superintendent and I think about schools as the epicenter of the community where things actually get done so the ideas about digital literacy. Again, empowering students and parents to understand their agency in this work, I think can happen in school the same the same thing to Chris's point around censorship when you look at the kinds of civics work that can be done in helping people with multiple perspectives, multiple texts. That is the work of what we do as teachers, as education leaders, they can begin to move this but we're not the kind of technology underpinning that gives kids access to the world through technology to powerful learning. This is the why this is really important. We have a problem. If we don't understand why we need to solve it. And that becomes a bigger problem. So this is the why we need to actually get this thing done. Wonderful, wonderful. Well I feel like this is good, you know I want to make sure we've been given a tiny extension to get in all the great questions and one of the questions that came from the audience is also similar to my what my opening question was going to be. And I think we're starting to answer it which is, you know, out of the period of remote learning being necessary for, you know, during the pandemic. What is the need, how do we, how do we articulate the need for connection and connectivity for our kids, you know and how do we talk about in terms of digital rights. You know, how do we close the digital divide and and talk about the importance of this as a utility and justify that when we don't have the immediate emergency of learning, or formal education at least, and this is for anyone on the panel. I think I'd offer a couple of suggestions one is, you know, the industry telecom industry is pushing very strongly on by right access to deploy small cells and other infrastructure and cities and rural areas. And it seems to me those are the kinds of rights we give to utilities when they actually have corresponding obligations. And that is to serve everyone in a community and so I would really urge Congress, this administration to really think about how we can ensure those obligations attached to any kind of rights we apply to the industry I appreciate the industry's desire to get deployment done quickly and cost effectively they should be able to do that, but they should have some significant obligations as well. And the last thing I'd say is there's a lot of one time money coming out right now, the federal and state level, it's great. And I really agree with the point that there needs to be ongoing sustainable sources, but how we spend that one time money is critical, because there's a strong industry push to put it on the middle mile. And I understand that it certainly benefits rural communities and that's a good thing but the intense need is in urban communities in low income neighborhoods, and that little mile investment isn't going to do anything for the great majority of children who are suffering on the wrong side of the digital divide, we need last mile investment. That's not what the industry is going to push. It's what we need to push. Okay, so yeah. So, putting pressure on the industry for you know that they they give something in exchange for what they're getting. Do others have thoughts about this about how do we talk about internet as utility outside of the context of remote learning only. I always add that when we talk about closing the digital divide we can't think about it as a one time thing that we're going to close today's digital divide and it'll be over right as was alluded to earlier in the panel, that there's new technologies coming out daily right new skills we're going to have to learn daily I have to learn new skills daily, there's going to be a continued need for investment in this in closing the digital divide and so we have to think about it as a long term thing. And so to me I highly respect the acting chairwoman and her push to close the homework gap. I no longer refer to it as a homework cap. I refer to it as a learning gap. Right. It is, it is today's learning happens online and it will continue to happen online for many of the applications that students will be using when they go back in the four walls of the building. And even in my home district, our, our district is offering school online next year for students that want to do that so it's going to continue, and we just have to to settle into that that this isn't over. Excellent. Let's quickly add to that. In the FCC chair acting chairman said education has changed. I'm going to argue, it's always been changing. In fact, when you look at this kind of technology integration is everywhere. Mayor Lakada knows really well about rocket ship public schools. I'm on the border that school. It's kind of integration. It is the core of what they do is summit public schools another one in California, similar kind of construct that has a social emotional learning embedded technologies the underpinning it is what happens there. The bottom line to Amy's point is we have to bring the rest of the masses to really understand the power powerful learning and what technology does to support that increase can show can talk a lot more to this kind of reference Great. So we also have this really great question about. Okay, the ebb program is working for the broadband piece of the digital divide but what about computers. How do we get computers to people is it, you know chamber of commerce partnerships is it government. Is it other nonprofits to focus efforts on raising that awareness of actually getting devices. Well, I'm guessing we're not jumping in because this one's far. What we've learned in the city, San Jose is that we just have to be really scrappy. And, you know, we've had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way you know, we're all doing device drives, you know, and use computer drives and what we learned is, that's not a great solution. One, everybody in a school needs to be using a comb book and that's, you know what the administration at the school is teaching kids how to use and, and understand how to maintain. And so we ultimately moved to a different model where we were actually using these device drives and just given all the devices to a third party recycler and they're paying us cash. And we went out and got Chromebooks for those districts and you come up. So, so we're all learning different ways. We've been drawing a lot of different parts of money a lot from philanthropy. And, and obviously we have the benefit being here in Silicon Valley being able to do that. We obviously need something more comprehensive than that. But in the meantime, local communities and schools are just going to be strappy. So I would jump in. I would say the devices are now down to a price point that is achievable for schools and districts to supply. It certainly helps to have phone traffic dollars upfront and it's, it's not easy but if we reexamine the school budgets, and how we're allocating money if we look at how much money we spend on textbooks, other online programs. The dollar or so for a Chromebook, or less if you're buying them in bulk is achievable we just need to start thinking about it differently. Now where I think the larger problem is not that that's not a problem but it's, there are solutions is the maintaining and the ongoing services associated with devices that is expensive, and that starts to add up just having a single issue and having a person who takes a look at that could cost you could take two hours which could cost more than the device itself. And that's where I think we need to look at sort of staffing supports that exist and there's going to be need to be something broader on that just like when we wanted to put, you know, physical education or our health education into our schools and make sure we had people trained, we had the supports there was the personnel, and then we might need to think of technology in that way, and thinking about it from my, from supporting learning, not just the it standpoint, but be able to encompass both. Great point, it all comes back to people in the end doesn't it. Yes, I mean to Chris's point to school, start with the school and the textbook laws we had of yesterday, many, many states translate that to the digital technologies of today. That's the solution. And then yes the ongoing support. Okay, well thank you all so much I'm sure we can go on all day I'm going to hand it off back to Lisa. And please keep questions coming we're going to try to get some more. I think, thank you so much on yet well what a good discussion and really, I think highlighted this the systems approach that needs to be understood here to and how interconnected all of these pieces are for families and for educators as well. So thank you so much on yet. We're going to move to our second panel now and I know Angela is going to probably put the slide up on the screen that shows who will have on our second panel this is going to give us a chance to go even deeper and talking about what this is really on the ground what it means for individual parents caregivers grandparents, and to harken back to that video at the top, really, when we heard the voices of parents and kids. So I'm going to introduce Jivaria Salman. So glad to vary to have you with us or just thrilled that you can moderate this. The digital news editor at heck into report and she also is doing a series of her own reporting and stories on so many of these similar issues so it's really just a thrill to have you with us to vary and I'm going to turn it over to you so that you can introduce the rest of the panel. Oh, I will say just really quickly. We're, we're sorry that Yoli Flores can't join us she was on the agenda up until yesterday she's not feeling well and really she sends her regrets she's so sorry she can't be here with everyone. And Yoli was really helpful in so many ways at the beginning of this research and working with Vicki cats and if you write out and figuring out questions so send a shout out to Yoli hope she's feeling better and really glad though to have these amazing panelists with us so jivaria over to you. Thanks Lisa. Hello everyone I'm jivaria Salman and the future of learning reporter at the heck and your report. And I'm really excited to be here just because I've been as I, you know, reflect on some of the survey findings and look at the data this has been so helpful just with everything that I've been reporting on myself and really looking forward to talking with our panelists today. Just because we know a lot of this work can't be done without listening to what the families and the parents are going through. So I'm just going to introduce, go ahead and introduce the panelists. My name is Myers, who is a grandparent from Pittsburgh and she works with a lot of families in the Pittsburgh area so we'll be hearing from her. And then Cindy Eglinton, who's the director of brilliant Detroit, and she'll be also she works a lot with the younger zero to eight age group and so we'll be talking with her. I'm a grandparent in a grand Pedroza, who is with every end of paratus, and will he'll be speaking a little bit more about what the families that he works with our be dealing with them for the past year and so, without further ado, we'll just go ahead and get started. And I guess, as I reflect as we reflect on the survey findings I Janice I kind of want to start with you as a parent and a grandparent who's been working directly with families. You look at some of the findings specially as it relates to what these went through and you know listening to some of the parent parents in the beginning at the in the video. What was this past year been like for for parents and you, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about just what your experiences in Pittsburgh and especially with the findings from Pittsburgh can you talk a little bit about what the parents and families that you've been working with have been going through and what does unconnected and under connected look like. Janice can't hear you. Okay, so problem number one is familiarity with how all of this works. So there's a big difference in the technology that I've used in my own life, all of these years, versus the technology that is needed to educate my children. So the one of the one of the biggest challenges for us was being under connected like we the school did give the kids computers, but they didn't have the capacity for all of the students to log in at the same time. There was a lot of logging off and logging back in to be until you could, I guess until there was enough data for you for your child to, to, you know, join their class so that was very frustrating. It was already a frustrating situation because it was a pandemic, none of us knew what to do, and we, we didn't know what was going to happen so that was that stressor in and of itself but then your whole dynamic and your household changes because now the children are all there and now you become the educator. I'm, I am a grandmother and a great grandmother, but I was not educated in the field of education so you know, to be able to even figure out what it was that the school district needed. There wasn't a lot of information that we got from them most of my information I received from TV, you know, Comcast had a lot of programs PBS had a lot of Sesame Street. And we learned a lot about what was going on and what was expected of us from the, from the TV. So, you know, I, it has been a challenge, I will say that the good news is that we survived the school year. It has been a lot of, I, a lot of relationship building with the teachers and the CEO are my kids go to a charter school so the CEO of the school because you have to call them because you know there wasn't a lot that they didn't know a lot that was going on we didn't know what was going on. I thought it was my, I thought it was my provider that the problem was from was my provider, and it ended up not being the provider who came out and you know they tried to fix things from in house. You know, it was just chaotic, but you know we survived. Thank you, Janice. Yeah, it's honestly when you, when you look at a lot of it was learning on the go and learnings from home and figuring out this process together and you know just looking at some of the parent reactions from the survey a lot of it was also parents learning that they learned so much about their kids education from home and they they learned what their kids were learning and how like you're talking about relationship building with schools and teachers like that didn't exist before as much. Adrian I kind of want to go to you and you want one of the things that a random purchase does is work with it, you know bring the teachers at schools and parents together and have have parents have relationships with the with their educators. Can you talk a little bit about what your community has been going through and what are your reflections on the surveys on the survey finding. Thank you very and thank you to New America for this wonderful report and for this conversation that we've been invited to be a part of, you know a lot of the data that was presented today is really a validation of what we were hearing from families throughout the pandemic and you know we did a survey of Latino families throughout the country, about 1200 interviews last year last summer and we heard many of the same data points about the under connectedness of families. What we also heard is that being under connected right was not just as Amy said a homework gap but a real learning gap, what we like to call under connected to whole child learning. Janice made a great point about the importance of communication and relationships. And so what we heard is this under connectedness led to really families being faced right with with having maybe less connection to counselors to social workers to teachers that supported that social emotional development of their children during the time where they needed it the most. Right, we heard about families being under connected to the wonderful experiences that are early education providers like in dango I saw them in the in the comments. One of our partners in California that were facilitating, you know, these play learn activities with remotely with their the youngest learners of them the what does opening doors works with families with young children from birth to five. We strongly believe that that plane is learning right and so this under connectedness this remote, this virtual experience right, a really impacted families that maybe didn't get to experience that with their early ed providers. We heard mayor to go to the really talk about the community based organizations and in the role that they played right. So community based organizations really stepping up to facilitate, and to really help to provide maybe the support that families could also that got critical information to families during a very critical time. We heard from families that were under connected to music arts to physical activity karate classes soccer classes basketball that were maybe happening virtually right. We know that this gap right and access to opportunities for families existed before the pandemic. The pandemic what it showed, right, is it further further expose this gap, right, because a lot of families didn't have this available virtually so as we go back, to in person learning right what are we going to do to ensure that this connection these relationships is connection to the whole child learning happens in an in person environment, as well as in virtual environments. We heard from our parents surveys and those interviews that a lot of rural families were facing higher rates right of feeling under connected right they had maybe less access to broadband internet, less access to communication. So we need to ensure that in our also in our rural areas that families have this connection to whole child learning opportunities. Well, I would like to say that my concern is also because we are seeing these different variants that are arising again and that the younger people are being affected. I'm not so sure that we're ready to move on in the capacity that we speak about because I am concerned about really what really will happen in the event that some of these things start to shut down again or the children do have to return or remain home and learn remotely. Also, the other issue is, for me was very basic, my five year old could not go to kindergarten this year because they needed birth certificates paperwork, immunization records, things like that. Well, in the beginning of the pandemic, everything shut down so I had no access to any of those things so that all of the things that they were requiring that require you to show up in person to get them because all these places were closed and you couldn't because being under connected and underserved, we, we used to go to the library and we would be able to, you know, pull up some things there but they were closing all of the places that we went that we, you know, it just was common that we get went to these places and access services when they all shut down and we're not in and we're saying for months those things shut down. And when you're talking about deadlines they have your children enrolled and so I wasn't able to get those things and so now he, he, he is enrolled to go to kindergarten this year but he is one year behind attending kindergarten because of the timing of the pandemic and the lack of access to paperwork that's needed by the school district. And I want to talk a little bit about Janice what you said and as Cindy I wanted to ask you this question as you know we've heard so much from the other panelists and as Adrian also pointed out and Janice, a lot of this work doesn't get done without community partners like the brilliant, you know pathway, and so brilliant Detroit and, and what Janice is saying is that a lot of this like parents kids have a lot, you know, there's a year where they, they didn't have access to devices and they didn't have access to internet and learning was completely disrupted. And so, but the survey shows that parents, a lot of parents want to focus on social emotional learning that's one of their top priorities. So how, how do, as, as a, if you can talk a little bit about how do parents, how do we focus on social emotional learning while also focusing on the academic needs and meeting those needs. I think it's all of it and I just want to say I'm really honored to be on this panel. I think new America's report highlighted things but I also think the group here is bringing out what it means on a one to one basis. And I think a one of the other parts of this report and I'm going to talk about the social emotional is about equity, and how people feel in the world that they are, I think this exposed holes that exist. And with or without COVID will continue unless we take this as a call to action, and people feel pretty crummy about not being able to both access things in a system that's confusing, etc. I think one of the things that we've heard repeatedly both from my parents and our families and our kids is that they are struggling with mental health issues. And this will live on, and it's even living on as we re enter. I, we have increased how many mental health offerings we are doing. How do we get reconnected worse social human beings, and without feeling loved and safe, which is a lot of what happened for people, you're not able to grow and learn. I think devices is a really critical piece, having access to internet, also critical, doing these things in a way that people are both not under connected with devices and technology, but with each other is really a critical piece. I'm hearing this period for me, and for our organization and we are blessed to serve about 10,000 individuals is that I used to do this work with my head and heart now it's head, heart and shoulders. And I just want to highlight one person who we work with because I think it answers your question. One week into COVID. She called our offices and she said I have to speak to Cindy. So now I lead the organization. I know a number of the participants that I give her a call. It's jazz is her name. There are four kids, they're all different ages, she's utterly confused on how to set a schedule. She has two devices for four kids and herself, and nobody knows what to do. In addition to that she doesn't know how to set a schedule for the day with multiple learning schedules. Janice I see you smiling you know what this is like. So a little over a year later, she figured it out. Like you said Janice, they got through it. Her kids actually ended up thriving. But what they were all left with was a sense of being beaten by the system in some way, and it is that social emotional is another way. We do work with what's called what we call resilience, we're working with the resilience lab, which is sometimes we're just looking at things as like this is a basic need. It is a basic need that you get education. It's a basic need that you have technology. It's also a basic need that you have joy, and, and things like that in your life so being able to talk about social emotional, not just as an offering, but how community organizations and community is a whole can come together to embrace each other in finding how we can create that going forward is going to be critically important and I think about Janice's grandson missing kindergarten, missing those connections for a year. They are the most important connections beyond just the learning and how do we make up for that so I think that community partnerships have a critical role to play here. We as educators and we as policymakers need to think about people as human, and that we have all of those needs. Technology is the number one thing you need, but how do you connect around all of that. I hope that answers the question. It definitely does and it also brings up another interesting point is that, and this is any of you guys can answer this, but that a lot of tech, having technology, you know, you can give somebody a device but they might not be able to use it and Janice you touched upon this as well is that without the, without the support system without the tech support and those communities partners, you can't really help your families right and so Janice can you talk a little bit about what it, what, what would this tech support look like providing that support to families and not just handing them a device and being like okay this is it. Well, for us, we have one tech guide that serves the whole school that's number one. And so any problem that you have in there that he's not there all of the time so certain days a week that they're there and certain hours that they're there so you have to come to the school why have five kids, and this is in the beginning for the pandemic moving around was, you know, it. There were a lot of problems with that they weren't sure who should go out who could go out could you get on the bus. There were there were a lot of questions, and I'm and when Cindy was talking about the mental health piece and that's so true the lack of connectedness with your health is also as caregivers because you know I'm concerned about their mental health and I'm concerned about how I'm navigating through this pandemic, also already being concerned about the lack of equity and education for black and brown and poor children, and then to have out of school, when we were already behind two years, if not more before so you know there are a lot of things that are going on and how you know you're very aware of how you are going to project that to the children and you know making sure that you're not feeding into what might be their own anxieties I mean they have to have anxieties to but with the technical part when when I would sometimes I would reach technical and they would speak in languages that I didn't understand, and I would say well what does that mean, I don't know what what do you mean find my hotspot what does that mean like where where would I look for that, and you know I think that people will people from where they come from and so you know I would have to say them listen, I'm a great grandmother what you just said meant nothing to me so what, what do I need to do I have these four kids here, different classes different schedules. This is not working you know so so I need you to explain that to me and so a lot of times I would say, can you bring your kids and your computer into the school, so that we can see what's going on because they weren't able to, you know, communicate with me enough at my home, this is staff, they were not able to communicate enough on my level to understand what they were trying to say was easier for them. If I bundled all the kids up and got caught the bus 3540 minutes into town to for them to fix it like it was just easier for them to fix the device, then to explain to me what it was that I needed, I had to read, I had to return to that school seven times for problems with my devices. Thank you, I think that that brings up like just that the communication barrier exists in so many different levels and one of the things that in the report mentioned and Adrian this is to you, but especially when we're talking about Latino families and we're talking about non native English speaking families. They weren't able to add some of these materials were not even, you know, accessible to them and so you talk about that that barrier and that challenge that your families had. And some of what we're talking about that communication barrier. Yeah, you know, Janice really gave some some great examples of that that communication barrier, you know, and a lot of the communication now is happening between parents and schools via applications right and so China login and accesses applications when when our families aren't getting the right technical support to be able to navigate them and that creates a barrier. We know that even a lot of translation is happening now via apps and so ensuring that as families are having difficulty accessing right, maybe translated information or communications right that they're able to have that technical support to use those applications. What we heard from families really is about three and four families last year when we surveyed interview them. We're asking for for more communication from their schools from their teachers. We did see higher rates for Spanish speaking families were wanting more of that communication, likely because of that language barrier that maybe they were feeling. So again and this is we saw this during the pandemic happened virtually and sort of expose that maybe gap when families speak other languages at home. But we know that this existed higher and will continue to exist if we really don't look at ways to further support families that speak other languages at home we celebrate the bilingualism to the multilingualism of our of our very diverse communities. So it all comes with understanding that as we look at our educational systems from earlier to higher ed that we really need to look at how to bridge that communication gap and ensure that we're developing a building relationship with families of all backgrounds. We also know that again in rural communities. A lot of our farm worker families that maybe have lower literacy rates and families that that maybe struggle right to read on some of these applications right. We need to look at other approaches right that just sending emails and posting things on apps isn't the the panacea right it's not the silver bullet and really need to look at at what Cindy spoke about is really developing those relationships between parents families, educators counselors and social workers. And again just want to reiterate how important community based organizations like the work Cindy does in Detroit are is essential to this type of connection. And build those partnerships between school systems, community based organizations and parents and families. I also would like to mention, I have, I work with a child who had an IEP. And he's had an IEP since kindergarten, and you know they're. So where do you go from there because, yes, toward towards the middle maybe the end of this school year, we did see community resources step up and we saw services from school in the beginning, it was all panic and chaos so there were no services so if you have a child and especially if the, if the IEP is based around behavior, and now you have this child with a behavior issue that has been being dealt with by professionals in different classrooms in a school building. And now that child is now a part of the family dynamic in a home. I didn't have space in my home for four children to learn so I someone gave me a dining room table. And that we all tried to learn from that. Well, you know, that didn't always go well. But the other thing is, so what happens, you know what happens with this child who was doing well under a very strategic learning plan, and who is now just at home with, you know, with, with one caregiver, five children in school, no, really no real basic resources like we can't even make the blue circle start spent stop spending on the computer, much less requiring parents and caregivers to give these children what they need so these children are behind on way more levels than I think that that's really being recognized and talked about how will they ever regain and even as a family, because you know that that affects the other children learning if you're having to give all of this and all of this attention to the child that needs this specific thing, then that means you know that the other children then are, again, are not getting what it is that you're even able to give them because of, you know, all of this in home remote remote learning. And thank you. And that's a really important point that you brought up to. You know, it's not just digital inequity. It's not just about broadband or providing devices. It's so much more than that. And it's, there's so much to it. And I want to ask, I just want to, before we run out of time, take a quick question from the audience. Any of they also did some of the people in the audience are wondering did family struggle with truancy and absence and what were some of the consequences because of, you know, the access challenges. I'd love to answer that one and then have anybody come behind it because we also run the grade level reading campaign for this city and our involved with the attendance. We have more than doubled kids not showing up at all. They're considered missing. And I think that it's really important in Detroit. It's important to recognize that when systems don't work. Kids and families don't participate. They give up. They try and try and try. Not everybody is a Janice who's going to keep advocating and keep going for it. Everybody cares. And so now we're trying to figure out how to reconnect with kids that literally are not attending school at all ages. And so this is a major problem that isn't being talked about enough just yet. I'm sure Detroit is not the only city that that's happening with. So is we reentry into the world. We start using things and then how do we use these lessons to help people be more connected less under connected and really create a more equitable system we cannot forget that. I could just add just quickly what an opportunity right as was presented with the data earlier in the report shows to really listen to what parents have learned during the pandemic and to ask the questions. How can we best respond to what you've learned about your child's learning. Right. And I think us as institutional leaders as systems leaders as systems thinkers, we need to really take that listening approach. And we build an education system that is responsive to what families have learned during this these times. Right. And I want to also add that that communication even in communities is important because reading ready Pittsburgh they sent my kids books. They were sending them workbooks like they they send them books like almost every six weeks. And I was mentioning that when I went to the food bank. I was going to choose some parents who were we were talking about the fact that the libraries were closed and the libraries are a source of a lot of different things in growth for children. And you know they thrive there for a lot of reasons but we were talking about the libraries being closed and I was saying to them that reading ready Pittsburgh sent my kids books and so the food bank started including books. When you went to the food bank they have books available for the children. So sometimes it's just sharing the you know the little bit that is happening for your children that is helping them like every little bit helps we were desperate. You know we were I was desperate I'll say I was desperate and and other people were desperate so that so it as as a system started kicking back in. It was very helpful was helpful for my family. I shared that information it was helpful with other families and that's how we you know made it to where we are actually So much you guys and Jan is what a treasure you are for Pittsburgh stupid it will make those connections for those community organizations but a huge thanks to all of you we are we are getting very short on time we're going to go over actually which is fine because so many folks have so much good stuff to share, but I want to let the panel go and say a big thanks to very for the moderation on this we're going to go to our call for action now. There are some really fantastic points at the end of Vicky cats and Vicky writeouts report so I'm just going to put these up on screen for you for a moment here for policymakers for educators and for content creators to be thinking about how to really move forward from this moment. And now I'm going to take us to just some respondents some amazing people who've been part of this work. On a number of different levels and they're each going to have a couple of minutes to give some calls to action all of us but I also encourage you all who are with us to put in the chat, some of your own calls to action what you really think we need to be doing next. And I'm going to first turn it over to Michael Levine and it's just a huge shout of thanks to Michael for everything related to this project. I mean so much of the work that we've done here and that Vicky and Vicky have been done has been because we've had this partnership with Michael so huge thank you Michael for that and I want to turn it over to you now and I got on mute. Thanks so much Lisa. Huge shout out congratulations for the publication of this amazing report and the collaboration between Rutgers and New America to bring this research to the countries I mean, I think it's really a seminal report it brings such a sharp focus on a compelling but really eminently solvable problem all the intractable things that we deal with this one can be, you know laser focus the plight and the concerns of the tens of the millions of Americans who are under connected so I think the report makes clear that we have not been laser focused on the right questions which of course has constrained to being full progress. We've made some progress but the team the research team. Giant thanks to you all for reframing the issues in clear and actionable data. I'm going to briefly offer three must do is in one caution for all the pivotal sectors to consider research and academia and practice and policy and media. I think we should have a goal of making measurable progress well before the next presidential election. So, here's my must use. One, we really have to as we heard on the panels, connect physical and human infrastructure policies and practices. Any new physical infrastructure initiative in this report is so timely I mean the FCC chairwoman made breaking news but in Congress right now. You know the folks are debating how to create an infrastructure that includes broadband, but we've need to push those folks to have a human capital building dimension to it's not just the pipes. So, in addition to the current emphasis in the pending legislation and Chris rush made this point, policymakers need to concentrate more attention not just on access but on ways to build community relationships that lead to meaningful more equitable participation in family support programs. This means considering new initiatives new investments like the digital ambassador for that Vicki cats has proposed which is a group of young professionals who can help support implementation of new learning models for every student. It also means providing support for new home to school communication technologies that help extend connected connected learning experiences, including things like high dosage tutoring work that's going to be necessary to aid in the intensive recovery period must do number two. I think that we heard about some silver linings so I say I say we need to scale these silver linings, and we need to mine these new assets. The study another reports made it clear that despite the tremendous inequities in health and social mobility capital that cove the COVID and ongoing racial injustices have deepened, there were for millions of families, these silver linings that were unexpected so while I hesitate to call these a pandemic dividend. They could be a down payment for future investment. Many families grew closer parents understood school requirements better as we just heard and learn new forms of tech savvy workarounds from their kids. Others came to better understand their children's learning needs and strengths and many found lifelines or at least saw less in both high quality educational media and binge worthy pop culture. When we enter a new phase of recovery. It's really incumbent on schools policymakers and philanthropies in particular to look for authentic ways to mine these assets. Perhaps by investing in a new generation of parent leadership networks being developed, including the panelists that we just heard from other organizations like parents together all our can guardians collective are great models to be investing in right now. And finally must do number three. And this is where you know my expertise comes in a little bit. Let's advance evidence based learning models to leverage popular media forms. The study offers both a reckoning, and I think an opportunity for media and tech companies including my own. We saw tremendous growth and reach during coven, which is beginning to level off, but more importantly the study findings raise a concern about whether we were ready, and more important, whether we will be in tune with family demands in the future. So while about half of the study respondents on educational media offerings to be significant additions to the children's learning during the pandemic with African Americans especially satisfied I choose to say, half did not and why to be frank, the types of media and online platforms reported in use by the parents were at best a mixed bag, in terms of likely evidence of impact. The study does show that some of the media and tech innovations, such as the emphasis on interactive games, close listening audio programming ebooks and creative tools were popular and so moving forward the challenge for my sector. The media makers is this, billions of dollars have been spent on developing popular children's program, programming that kids and their parents have embraced as staples of their digital diet. Are we ready to use this access to build effective experiences to Nancy in home and school experiences of under connected families and will impact oriented media and tech companies invest the needed R&D to advance the most effective formats and learning settings This moment might be, I think, a once in a generation opportunity. And so are we ready so to recap real quickly. First we need to leverage unique but too often neglected affordances of digital access to build, not only the physical infrastructure, but human relationship capital second, we need to mine these new assets, like increased parent knowledge and engagement to build bridges and community learning settings. And third, this is the moment to seize a huge opportunity to leverage the investments and rich media content that kids crave, but which schools have avoided in the past and just in closing, all of these steps are unachievable with a coordinated effort by, you know, let by all of you the folks who are at this forum, leaders in education parent engagement policy research philanthropy and media, but there's one urgent caution which is essentially, let me remind everyone why the research we are discussing was necessary, without an emphasis on delivering a digital promise to all families. And unless we involve the families of the under connected folks themselves in the work ahead. We're going to continue to grow the sizable participation participation and learning gaps that this research has uncovered over now, six years. So, we owe a great debt to Rutgers in New America for reminding us that you cannot solve a problem. If you have the wrong focus, we've been measuring digital inequality and the digital divide with the wrong lens now, I would say for probably two decades, it's past time to formulate a new approach starting right now. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Michael. Yeah, that the under connected piece is really going to resonate. I can just already feel it. I'm going to turn over now to Michelle and of raising a reader who has been a partner on many projects over the years related to these issues but also help so much in getting us connected to communities. And Michelle wanted to, yeah, what is your call to action for us today. Thanks, Lisa, and I'm really honored and humbled to be on the zoom platform with so many impressive speakers here today. So, I just want to wrap with some thoughts which is really an implication and compilation of a few of the thoughts that were already shared. So I am pleased that New America was able to conduct those focus groups in our partners with Detroit Pittsburgh and Santa Clara County that really heard directly from parents of the young kids ages three to six. As Adrian mentioned, we heard from parents in these community discussions that we must ensure that the conversation is allowed and persistent in including what being under connected means for this age group. Because struggling with being under connected contributes to also being uninspired with the learning experience. It doesn't matter how engaging a read aloud on zoom is if it keeps cutting in and out and you miss half the story. Those of us in the field of early childhood development know that pre pandemic that the transition to kindergarten was already a critical milestone in a child's education. And as Janice's grandson is an example for many kindergartners and first graders this next school year, it will be the first time in in person school. It is important that as kids transition back into school that we find ways to support families this summer and into that will ease that transition and ensure that we are employing those developmentally appropriate strategies that will infuse the fun and joy in learning again for these kiddos. And how can we also do this for families in the home as well. As Vicki cat shared the survey showed that one in three parents disagreed with feeling more confident in helping their child with their score. With me as an end of one but I'm sure there's many of you on the zoom that feel the same that when I'm not feeling confident, I don't explain things clearly and especially not with fun and joy in my face, or on my voice. So how can we provide the grown ups in a child's life additional resources that help build their confidence so that especially for our littlest ones they're seeing from their role models that learning can be fun. And I'm glad that Vicki and Vicki also not only explore the challenges families face but also develop a survey that drew out what some of the strengths families gained, which included increased shared reading time with their child and increased knowledge about what their children's learning in school. So how might we continue to focus and build on these family strengths to deepen their knowledge about their children's learning and deepen the partnership between home and school with materials and resources that make it easy to foster this connection. And lastly I'll just wrap with my experience as a mom. So I have two kids ages nine and 12, and if the pandemic had to happen, I feel fortunate that my kids were in that sweet spot age, where they were old enough to be pretty self sufficient but young enough they still sort of like hanging out with us. And we were also able to access devices so that we even had more than one per person, we were able to increase our internet surface. And our family was clearly not under connected, if there were still many tears when our wife went out during, during a test and there was panic and frustration when there was a realization that one kid was 10 lessons behind. And I say all of this because as a family living through the pandemic, we had it easy, but it was still really really hard. And I'm tired, and families are tired, they were tired before the pandemic and they're even more tired now. And with the best of intentions, it is hard to try to look for resources that you may need when you are this tired. So as Cindy also addressed, I encourage us that as we imagine and rebuild our communities that we make the on rent for parents to access access resources simpler and easier. Since your families don't care which organization or funding stream is giving them their hotspot or books in their home language or providing that social emotional development. What they really care about is that they have that resource. So I just encourage all of us to work together to streamline and align our programs because there's not one organization one app or one sector. And as we get us through all of this. And as we like to see it raising a reader, it's really going to take some radical collaboration to ensure we are truly meeting the needs of children. Thank you. I'm hearing you on all of that exhaustive parent kids in school right now to 100%. So I'm so thrilled that Amir and Michael are with us and they're going to be able to close us out with some really key calls to action from the Open Technology Institute and the wireless future project and I'm really so glad you guys are here and this was going to be able to kind of give us yet more to lean on so I'm going to turn it over to you first Michael is that right and then to Amir Yeah, thanks Lisa. Yeah, Amir and I will tag team on this wrap up call to action. So you've heard today about a little bit about two federal programs, one temporary and one permanent that could do far more to promote remote learning and close the home work gap more permanently. One is relief money, the emergency connectivity fund that will provide 7.2 billion to schools and libraries. The other is irate a permanent part of the universal service fund. Unfortunately, neither of these federal programs allow funding for networks and wireless technologies, such as the community Wi Fi network in San Jose that you heard Mayor Ricardo described that can extend the school's network directly to students at home and close the homework gap long term. The ECF, the emergency fund requires schools to buy broadband from established commercial providers, unless the school demonstrates the neighborhood is sort of by any ISP willing and able to provide adequate service to support remote learning and irate 15 months into the pandemic still prohibits the use of any funds for remote learning. So I'll hand it off to Amir to describe those innovative school solutions. Thanks, Michael. And thanks for having us, Lisa. Yeah, so as Michael mentioned, there's been a whole host of different options that schools and districts have adopted during the pandemic and can adopt afterwards to close the homework gap more permanently. Many school districts have opted to build community Wi Fi networks to bring connectivity to students. Lindsay California, home to many agricultural workers and with 90% of the district students eligible for the federal free and reduced lunch program did just this. And Lindsay actually embarked on connecting students to the internet long before the pandemic in 2014-15. After determining that relying on mobile hotspots and cell signals was inadequate, the district moved to connect student homes by deploying a mesh network of Wi Fi access points that were placed on schools, city property and student homes to connect connect to extend connectivity from a fiber network to these homes. The community Wi Fi network then prepared the student the district for learning for when learning move to be remote during the pandemic and similar community Wi Fi networks have been deployed in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and any San Jose as as Michael and the mayor noted as well. Separately throughout the pandemic schools have kind of tapped into these sharing frameworks that allow them to use unused airwaves that were been made available by the Federal Communications Commission to deploy private LTE networks in tandem with internet service providers. So this means that the network is deployed for the specific purpose of students and teachers being connected and those users have been prioritized on that network. The networks have ensured that schools can deploy networks using free airwaves in a quick and cost effective manner to bring students the internet at home that they needed to succeed. And these networks deployed nationwide but particularly effectively in McAllen, Texas, demonstrate how the solution can work well to bridge the homework gap more permanently in areas with sufficient population and building density to actually build the network, and where students families may be unable to afford home internet. And the last option that we've kind of profiled in the report is a technology known as TV white spaces, which refers to the unused band of airwaves that are adjacent to frequencies used by TV broadcast channels. These airways have been referred to as supercharged Wi Fi because they can extend signals up to five miles, which in the context remote learning is super helpful because it means the school can extend its fiber network up to five miles directly from the building in all directions to the next students nearby. And these technologies are particularly useful for sparsely populated areas where Wi Fi mobile networks may be tougher to build. And this technology has been used in districts very recently in North Carolina and historically that the big pilot program in southern Virginia. And I'll pass it back to Michael to discuss what these and yet tell us about public policy. Yes. Hi Michael, just real quick, you have to close up. Oh, sure, sure. So, the specific calls to action are, you know, first, if the temporary emergency connectivity fund is extended, we need to ask Congress to include language giving schools flexibility to invest in permanent solutions. And second, and more critically we need to expand both funding and flexibility in the rate itself school should be able to use the rate subsidies to purchase any tech or services that help close the homework gap. More permanently. So what we what we need next might call a we have category one any rate to connect the schools to the internet category two for Wi Fi throughout the school. But we need what you might call a new category three, a sustainable source of funding and flexibility for schools to close to homework gap, once and for all. And the final thing I would just mention very quickly, because folks can let us know if they want to see this. We have a it's related we have a separate proposal for Congress to set aside as much as $10 billion in future spectrum auction revenue to endow a digital equity foundation to provide sustainable investments in digital inclusion training, education technology, professional development, and such. So that's something they were looking at the end of the Obama administration but we need to pursue that now as another avenue. Thanks. And there's an interesting report on this idea that Michael has published that's on new America's site as well so we'll be sending all of this out to everyone who's attended. I just want to wrap up by saying just huge thank you. I'm so appreciative of everybody who could be here of the incredibly engaging chat and conversation with all of the attendees and a big thanks to this last panel for just really important and very actionable ideas of what we can do next. And we will, we'll, we'll call it there. Thank you everybody, especially the events and comms team I put in the chat, amazing people. Thanks for Vicki and Vicki, and we will catch you all online.