Consultant to examine cost of faster Internet in schools

The state will use a private consultant to determine the cost of increasing the broadband Internet speed at school districts across the state to make sure all schools have enough access to meet digital learning requirements.

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At a joint meeting of the House and Senate Education committees on Tuesday, legislators agreed to hire educational finance consultants Picus Odden & Associates. Based in Wisconsin and California, the consulting firm helped Arkansas calculate appropriate education spending levels after the courts said the existing funding was inadequate.

"When I was explaining the unique situation here in Arkansas with the politics ... and a lot of disagreement and no [agreement on] pricing, [the consultant] said to me, 'Hey, that sounds like 49 other states,'" said Richard Wilson, assistant director of research services at the Bureau of Legislative Research. "So they've been through this before. They're familiar with these kinds of broadband studies, and they're familiar with Arkansas, because they've worked with us before."

The broadband cost study needs to be done by mid-September to be included in the required biennial educational adequacy report, which is due to the Legislature on Nov. 1, Wilson said.

The lack of bandwidth is starting to cause problems for schools as more standardized tests are offered only online. Act 1280 of 2013, passed by the Arkansas Legislature, also requires every school to provide at least one interactive online course, beginning this fall. Adequate Internet access becomes even more elusive for smaller, rural districts limited by geography and class size.

Legislators and staff are hoping the consultant, which will be paid an estimated $71,000 plus expenses, will clarify some of the issues surrounding broadband access in Arkansas public schools that private Internet providers and education organizations have debated for months.

Two separate committees have made recommendations about how to increase schools' broadband access based on an Arkansas Department of Education survey of school districts that shows inadequate and expensive access to broadband infrastructure. Those committees -- the Quality Digital Learning Study committee and FASTER Arkansas -- also point to a wide range of monthly access costs paid by districts.

Private Internet providers have said the issue for most districts isn't lack of broadband infrastructure, citing millions of dollars of work they've collectively done to wire the state over the past decade. They have argued that some districts don't have enough funding or haven't made high-speed Internet service a priority. They also noted that many districts did not respond to the education department's survey.

Much of that debate during the past three months has centered around whether to open up the state's high-capacity broadband research network, the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network, which connects the state's universities, research hospitals, some libraries and most two-year colleges. Private providers are against the move, which they say will put them in direct competition with the state.

Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, chairman of the Senate committee, said the consultant study will likely not address requests to open that research network.

"It's not going to necessarily be a discussion of who provides the broadband," he said.

Metro on 07/02/2014

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