The FCC wants to rethink E-Rate, the $2 billion-a-year program that subsidizes internet access for schools and libraries. Schools and libraries are not happy about it.
In June, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr led a 2-1 vote to open a formal comment period on whether E-Rate should be limited or sunset entirely. Carr argues the program has drifted from its original job of funding basic connectivity and has instead enabled schools to push screen time on students. The proposal could shrink the discounts schools and libraries get on telecom services and equipment, add new restrictions on how the money gets spent, or kill the program outright. Schools and libraries around the country have now filed pleas with the FCC to scrap the idea.
E-Rate has been quietly running since 1997, well before "screen time" was a cultural anxiety, and plenty of districts rely on it for basic things like keeping library Wi-Fi on for kids without home internet. Framing a connectivity subsidy as a screen-time problem conflates two separate arguments: how schools use devices once they're online, and whether they can afford to get online at all.
If Carr's NPRM leads to cuts, the practical effect falls hardest on districts and libraries that can least absorb higher telecom bills. That's a funding fight dressed up as a device-use debate.