February, 24, 2023
Imagine your neighbor has no electricity. No power for heat. No light for dark nights. No access to TV or other forms of information and entertainment. You’d worry for you neighbor and their kids, fully understanding just how terribly this lack of electricity was impacting their entire lives. In this day and age, you may never encounter a neighbor without electricity, but there’s a good chance you have many neighbors in your city or town whose home lacks a less visible, but very important service.
Though not as essential to modern life as electricity, broadband internet has gone from a luxury to a necessity, particularly for school-age children. Looking as far back as 2009, the FCC reported that 70 percent of teachers assign homework that requires access to broadband internet. That number is almost certainly higher now, placing kids without home internet access at an extreme disadvantage. Not only do these children have to find a library or business with free internet to complete their homework every night, but they also lack important internet exposure that has become second nature to their peers. The longer they go without this access, the higher their risk of falling farther behind, making it more difficult to get good grades, get into college, and ultimately find a job in a very computerized marketplace.
The Pew Research Center found the “homework gap” – defined as school-age children who lack the connectivity to complete their schoolwork at home – is more pronounced for Black, Hispanic and lower-income homes. Further, a quarter of Black teens said they often or sometimes cannot complete their homework assignments due to a lack of reliable computer or internet access. The pandemic only made the problem worse. While studies show that learning loss was more severe for Black and Hispanic students, White parents (66%) are more likely than Black (50%), Hispanic (55%) and Asian parents (50%) to say that the first year of the pandemic had a negative impact on their children’s education.
At Cox Communications, we are committed to closing the digital divide. In 2012, we started our Connect2Compete program, providing fast and affordable internet service available for less than $10 per month. Since 2020, we have connected more than 2.5 million people to one of our affordable internet offerings.
It’s also why we launched the Cox Digital Academy, a free online library that links to multiple educational resources for students, parents, educators and the entire community. Cox’s Digital Academy teaches the foundations of computer and internet use and provides a simple and accessible way for anyone to learn the basics without any hurdles.
A parent grappling with how to manage their children’s access to the internet can learn from a detailed article about parental controls. Students can access courses that teach different computer skills that their classmates may take for granted. Teachers can find intensive resources that will help with tasks like setting up a digital classroom that is accommodating for all of their students.
Though these classes and tutorials may seem basic to the average computer user, they weren’t created with the average user in mind. Cox Digital Academy is about ensuring that we do our part to help level the playing field. Our goal is to give students access to the tools they’ll need to excel at school and throughout the rest of their lives.
