For the more than 250 public and charter school districts in Arkansas, access to the Internet and the speed of Internet service can vary widely even among school buildings within the same district.
The Arkansas Department of Education has been working to catalog where the state's districts stand in terms of every student and staff member being able to log onto the Internet without lengthy delays. The recently released state Quality Digital Learning Study recommends that the state adopt a national standard of 100 kilobits per second of bandwidth -- referring to the speed and volume of data -- per staff member and student.
One thousand kilobits is equal to 1 megabit of data, which is the unit many schools use to measure their districtwide bandwidth access.
But a survey of school districts last year, compiled and released in December, shows bandwidth disparities among districts, with some reporting as little as 3 kilobits per second of bandwidth per student while others had more than 800 kilobits per second.
There was no apparent rhyme nor reason for the disparities: Districts with the lowest amounts of bandwidth per student ranged from rural to urban and from small charter schools to districts that have more than 23,000 students and staff members.
Even districts close to interstate highways, where a lot of fiber-optic cables run and where the cost to lay wire to connect to those cables is typically lower than in places farther away, turned up on the deficits list.
Some Internet service provider companies say the broadband survey and some other information in the Quality Digital Learning Study are flawed, and they oppose some of the recommendations made by the study committee.
The study, for example, recommends allowing kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools to connect to the state's Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (known as ARE-ON), which connects universities, community colleges, hospitals and libraries. The network uses fiber-optic cables that are largely owned by the service providers.
The providers have said that allowing those schools to connect to the network would force the providers' potential customers -- the schools -- onto a network that the providers now rent to the state. The providers urged legislators to take more time before making a decision on the study's recommendation.
"If the [study's] data is incorrect, then the study and its recommendations are incorrect," said Jordan Johnson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Broadband Coalition for Kids, a group made up of representatives from Internet companies. "The providers going back last summer even, have been questioning the consistency of the data well before the assessment was complete, and it fell upon deaf ears."
Supporters say lack of bandwidth is starting to cause problems for some schools as more standardized student tests move to online formats. Among them is the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, exam that will be administered online in the coming school year. Also, Act 1280 of 2013 requires every school to provide at least one interactive online course for incoming ninth-graders beginning this fall.
Phone calls made to the 20 school districts listed at the bottom of the state's broadband-access survey found that some districts may not belong that low on the list and that some information has become outdated over the past year as districts gear up for the new Internet requirements.
The survey which is on the Education Department's website, lists the amount of available and planned bandwidth for individual school districts, as reported by those districts.
For example, the Bauxite School District is listed in the survey as having the second-least broadband access, but administrators said Friday that they made a mistake.
"We only reported what we buy from the [the state]," said Tyler Tarver, the director of technology and principal of the Miner Academy -- a digital charter school created by the Bauxite School District.
Many school districts buy a portion of their bandwidth from the state's Department of Information Systems, which owns broadband hubs across Arkansas.
"Right before I started, the whole district ran in the 2011-12 school year on 5 megabits [per second of broadband], but it was increased to 20 Mbps the next year, and 50 Mbps the next year," he said. "And this [coming] year, we're going up to about 100 Mbps, which is scheduled to be available at the beginning of July."
He said the district's service provider, AT&T, agreed to lay any additionally needed fiber-optic cables for free. He also said a lot of the increased price for the increased bandwidth will be covered by the federal e-rate program, which reimburses districts that purchase additional broadband at varying rates, depending on the districts' poverty level and other factors.
"When we went from 20 to 50 Mbps, and with all those [federal] programs, we actually saved $30 a month. And when we go up to 100 Mbps, the monthly cost will be about the same [as the district paid for 50 Mbps] at $1,400 a month, maybe a little more," he said.
The Springdale School District was also listed in the survey's bottom 20 in terms of access, but a spokesman there said recently that since the survey was turned in a year ago, the district has increased its capacity greatly.
Technology director Eric Hatch said the district, which has more than 23,000 students and staff members, reported on the survey buying 100 Mbps from the state and another 300 Mbps from private service providers. But that number will be upgraded to 5,000 Mbps under the district's technology plan, all for about $1,500 a month after the federal e-rate.
However, there are some school districts on the list in more rural areas and with fewer students that were struggling to find affordable ways to provide Internet access to their students and staff members.
At the Brinkley School District, Superintendent Arthur Tucker said staff members have been working with the Great Rivers Educational Co-op to expand the district's Internet access.
"I think the access [to broadband cables] is probably there, but it's supply and demand," he said. "When it comes to providing access, there's a cost, and it may not be a good cost to benefit the school. It's also an issue of equity. When the state requires us to do certain things, and the children don't have access to bandwidth here, then that's an equity issue."
The Blevins School District, which has fewer than 600 students and staff members, was in a similar access predicament. Technology director Cindy Heagwood said the district is running on 5.6 Mbps -- far below the standard and far below the access needed to run the required online adequacy tests next school year.
"We did not even attempt the field test for the PARCC exam, we knew we couldn't handle it [with the district's current Internet access]," Heagwood said.
"We have to rely heavily on online learning and distance learning as a rural district, so the need to have enough access is even greater here," she said, adding that the district will increase its access to 100 Mbps on July 1.
But that access comes at a cost. When the district put the Internet provider contract out for bid, the providers' prices varied widely. Windstream estimated the cost of laying the cable and providing Internet service at about $21,300 per month.
CenturyLink, the low bidder, said the cost would be closer to $3,040 per month. Heagwood said she didn't know why the contract quotes varied so greatly, but with the e-rate program, the district will likely pay about $304 per month for the higher access.
Supporters of the digital learning study and its recommendations, which will be discussed at a meeting of the Senate and House Education committees today, said allowing school districts access to the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network could be one way to address the issue of equity among the districts.
"Districts will still have to pay private providers to connect them to the ARE-ON network," said Richard Abernathy, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators. "At the end of the day, schools are going to pay less for a higher-quality service. Schools in other states pay less than what we do. And there should be numbers released Monday to hopefully help this entire discussion along."
The talk today will address questions raised in previous legislative committee meetings regarding whether the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network has the capacity to handle service for school districts. And opponents are hoping the discussion will also address some of the discrepancies they believe exist in the Education Department's study data and in their own service records.
"There's a far better process that exists," Johnson said, referring the recommendation to connect schools to Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network."The providers have made great strides in expanding broadband access throughout Arkansas. There is work to be done, and they will continue to work to make sure every school district has the broadband it needs for its students."
A section on 06/09/2014