Senate Passes 'Cruel' Republican Plan To Block Wi-Fi Hotspots For Schoolkids (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0177392409
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/08/1859227/senate-passes-cruel-republican-plan-to-block-wi-fi-hotspots-for-schoolkids
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/senate-approves-ted-cruz-plan-to-block-wi-fi-hotspots-for-schoolchildren/
> The US Senate today voted along party lines to [1]kill a Federal Communications Commission program to distribute Wi-Fi hotspots to schoolchildren , with Democrats saying the Republican-led vote will make it harder for kids without reliable Internet access to complete their homework. The Senate approved a Congressional Review Act (CRA) [2]resolution to nullify the hotspot rule, which was issued by the Federal Communications Commission [3]in July 2024 under then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The program would be eliminated if the [4]House version passes and President Trump signs the joint resolution of disapproval.
>
> The Rosenworcel FCC's rule expanded E-Rate, a Universal Service Fund program, [5]allowing schools and libraries to use E-Rate funding to lend out Wi-Fi hotspots and services that could be used off-premises. The FCC rule was titled, "Addressing the Homework Gap through the E-Rate Program," and the hotspot lending program was [6]scheduled to begin in funding year 2025, which [7]starts in July 2025 . Today's Senate vote on the resolution of disapproval was 50-38. There was a 53-47 vote on Tuesday that allowed the Senate measure to proceed to the final step. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on Tuesday that "this resolution would prevent millions of students, educators, and families from getting online."
Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) [8]called the Republican move "a cruel and shortsighted decision that will widen the digital divide and rob kids of the tools they need to succeed."
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/senate-approves-ted-cruz-plan-to-block-wi-fi-hotspots-for-schoolchildren/
[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/7
[3] https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-approves-rules-support-wi-fi-hotspots-through-e-rate-program-0
[4] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-joint-resolution/33
[5] https://www.fcc.gov/general/e-rate-schools-libraries-usf-program
[6] https://www.usac.org/e-rate/applicant-process/before-you-begin/off-premises-wi-fi-hotspots-summary-overview/
[7] https://www.usac.org/rural-health-care/additional-program-guidance/funding-year-overview/
[8] https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-slams-republican-effort-to-tear-internet-access-from-rural-and-low-income-students
Community hotspots (Score:2)
I guess the schools will just have to setup facilities in poorer neighborhoods who's wifi will spillover and pay for it with erate funding.
Re:Community hotspots (Score:5, Interesting)
Not likely. I am a teacher and while we are required to have connected devices, we are not allowed to use the school's wi-fi.
That's right, we are expected to use our own data to do work when there is a fully functioning wi-fi system in the building. All of the students are connected to the "student" wi-fi using the district-issued Chromebooks. The administration uses the "Staff" wi-fi, which the teachers are not permitted to access.
The really annoying part is that I got a grant for a bunch of drones and robots. I have the hardware, but I can not use them because the district IT department is adamant that nothing under teacher control is to be connected to the wi-fi.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I do have the wi-fi password; it wasn't rocket science to figure it out. But that isn't the point.
Re: (Score:2)
I have heard of some pretty asinine policies that teachers have to deal with, but this one really has me scratching my head.
The sad thing, internet access can still be shit! (Score:3)
I live in Canada, and even in large cities like Vancouver, and Toronto you can still have virtually no access to the internet. You'll have an option to acquire internet access, but the service is spotty, low bandwidth, and terrible. It's not common, but I know people who have internet access that would make Dial Up seem like ultra-high speed.
It's unbelievable that in 2025 we're still at a point where you have to question if a child has a computer and access to the internet. Screw the question if the parents should provide it, there should not be a situation where a child can't access a computer with good quality internet access. I don't care if they have to stay late at school, go to a library, whatever, that situation should not exist. I understand that when schools hand out computers they do not get treated well, I also understand that Chromebooks are crap, but if the choice is between nothing or something, something wins.
It's nearly $5B a year with little oversight (Score:3, Insightful)
This was a nearly $5B/year program with little oversight as to who would get these devices. School staff, library staff, library patrons, students, anybody who wants one can get it with no justification needed.
If this is meant for schoolkids then why isn't it at least tethered to provide service only to a school-managed and provided Chromebook?
If this is for doing homework then why isn't it covered under one of the other home internet access programs?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So nobody can have it because it's just possible that someone who doesn't deserve it may get it. Understood.
Re: It's nearly $5B a year with little oversight (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not what he was saying at all. This seemed like a rushed idea with little thought put into it. Do we even have any idea the implications that puts on existing infrastructure? Security of such a system?
Re: It's nearly $5B a year with little oversight (Score:4, Interesting)
What evidence do we have though of it being "a rushed idea with little thought put into it"?
All we were given was a cost and an accusation with normative implications. That's lazy, don't make the reader do your thinking work for you.
Convince the rest of us, with evidence.
you know damn well thats how some people think (Score:3, Insightful)
> Nobody can have it because it's just possible that someone who doesn't deserve it may get it.
That's the conservative rule for everything, ever.
Can't be having The Poors being able to get Healthcare. Or education. Or apparently, safe food, safe medicine, safe working conditions, clean water, clean air, safe skies, or access to nature.
Re: (Score:1)
That was my comment and I'm a "conservative".
Mind you, I'm a Canadian conservative (ref: Edmund Burke), not a USAian "conservative", which is really reactionary fascism.
Re: (Score:2)
> So nobody can have it because it's just possible that someone who doesn't deserve it may get it. Understood.
We means-test all kinds of assistance intended for the poor. Why is this different?
And what about the questions on the purpose and how to enforce usage consistent with the purpose:
- If this is meant for schoolkids then why isn't it at least tethered to provide service only to a school-managed and provided Chromebook?
- If this is for doing homework then why isn't it covered under one of the other home internet access programs?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes we could properly gatekeep it if we create an administrative apparatus full of govt employees that check paperwork submitted by new staff the school would have to bring on to submit it. That'll be efficient.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure but if you want more and more stringent means testing then you have to pay for it. Someone has to enforce it and evaluate all the applicants and investigate if they are being truthful.
There does come a point where you spend so much on means testing that you end up spending more than using a lighter hand and accepting some "undeserved" benefits. There's also a lot of wasted productivity of where the applications of benefit becomes overly burdensome.
here's a reason Social Security has an administrativ
Re: (Score:2)
Huh. If only there was an alternative between two all or nothing extremes. Like if someone were to make rules, "regulate" if you would, who can use the money and under what circumstances. We could even call these potential rules "regulations". Oooohhh and then we could task someone else to check up on how the money was spent, an "audit" as the fancy financial people say. That person who we could call something clever like an "auditor" can then report back on how the funds were actually used.
Eh, fuck al
wait, we still have a Congress? (Score:3, Funny)
They're actually doing something other than ranting about Jewish Space Lasers.
They haven't completely abdicated their duty, allowing the President to decide everything by signing emergency executive orders because we're at war with Venezuela or something?
Re: (Score:2)
> They're actually doing something other than ranting about Jewish Space Lasers.
They've been busy! They just passed a bill codifying the "Gulf of America". You know, the important stuff that Americans really care about.
They don't want an educated proletariat (Score:2)
This is part of their campaign of "soft eugenics".
Starve the poor
Deny them health care.
Deny them education.
They'll eventually die out.
Re:They don't want an educated proletariat (Score:4, Informative)
Or they'll rebel and kill all the oligarchs. It's not like it's never happened before in human history.
It really hasn't (Score:2)
Not without the support of the military. If you look at revolutions you're going to find that every time one of them got anywhere it was because the military sided with the revolutionaries. And that was before modern military weapons.
Violence doesn't work for the left wing. That's because to make violence work you need a good command structure. And as soon as you build that command structure congratulations you're no longer left-wing you're now right wing.
Because that's the entire point of the righ
Wifi? Try food (Score:2, Informative)
Republicans don't even want to feed children. [1]https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-congressman-suggests-children-receiving-free-school-lunches-rcna189614
You will pay (Score:1)
The entire goal of Republicans is to make you pay so private industry can enrich themselves. From wi-fi to [1]Medicare [marketwatch.com] to [2]weather [cnn.com], they want you to pay through the nose.
Mind you, [3]they won't pay [politifact.com], but you will.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-push-to-privatize-medicare-would-be-a-disaster-for-taxpayers-especially-seniors-b9cb8a69?mod=search_headline
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/08/climate/noaa-ends-disaster-database
[3] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/aug/30/instagram-posts/businesses-associated-these-gop-politicians-had-pa/
Please waste more of my money (Score:1)
Yes! Please spend more of my money on people I don't know on things they don't need. I love it when you do that. Oh wait. They actually stopped it from happening? That doesn't sound like congress. All they want to do is spend my money. This sounds made up.
The "Cruel" made me lol, so thanks for that :)
Re: (Score:2)
> Yes! Please spend more of my money on people I don't know on things they don't need. I love it when you do that. Oh wait. They actually stopped it from happening? That doesn't sound like congress. All they want to do is spend my money. This sounds made up.
> The "Cruel" made me lol, so thanks for that :)
Yes! Awesome! Now they can spend even more money by giving it to people who already have several orders of magnitude more money than you do!
More serfs (Score:3, Informative)
This is just ongoing class warfare, nothing new.
A surprising number of people see kneecapping others kids as a way to increase the chances of their own. Most people who think this way won't say so in public, for obvious reasons, but I have heard it expressed more candidly from cultures who are more honest about class distinctions.
And then there are the "jerb creators", who don't want any of their poor people getting ideas about improving their station or worse, actually achieving financial stability. Southern US states explicitly pitch this when trying to lure companies in, along with "no unions".
The US government is trying to destroy the middle class. They want you poor, powerless and scared.
Re: More serfs (Score:1)
Hey, look on the bright side... Most of the people impacted by this change are from rural areas, and MAGA supporters are mostly rural people.
FA, FO.
The midterm elections are going to be interesting.
no (Score:2)
See, that's the thing. I don't like seeing people suffer. And even if I did, we don't make the country a better place by shitting on each other and breaking each other's stuff.
I don't like a lot of what Xian churches teach people and give them permission-structures to do without guilt. That doesn't mean I want to burn them down.
I'm a fan of adversarial systems with rules. They have served us well. And I absolutely believe in smacking people who subvert those rules down, hard. But disagreeing about the r
Well the... (Score:2)
Well the democrats could have gotten of their cowardly butts and filibuster the bill. But no, so it belongs to the democrats as much as it does with the GOP.
Re: (Score:2)
What an odd take. I'm not really sure what value you place on the filibuster, but I don't see it as anything more than a tantrum. Performative politics at its most ridiculous; something I want less of, not more. Assigning ownership/blame for a failure to complain loudly enough or long enough despite knowing that it is futile is a bit much IMO.
Collateral beauty? (Score:2)
So these kids spend less time on social media. Less brain rot, better school results? Republicans did not think this through. Too much social media drained their focus, I guess. (/s)
Why the hyperbole (Score:2)
"Cruel" plan to "block" wifi.
There is no blocking of wifi going on here, just elimination of a program where some people's wifi is paid for by everyone else. The US Constitution never intended for the federal government to be buying stuff for individual private use, and does not grant such powers. Stopping something we were never supposed to be doing in the first place: So cruel!
Re: (Score:2)
> "The US Constitution never intended for the federal government to be buying stuff for individual private use, and does not grant such powers."
Yep. But stand by for downmodding.
Education is a State function, not Federal, period. It is not listed as a Federal power or responsibility, nor denied to the States, and therefore belongs to the States (per the Constitution). If a State education system is requiring at-home Internet for "homework", then that State can figure out how to address that need/issue
Adam Serwer summed it up years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
"The cruelty is the point."
Re: (Score:1)
I thought that the tech giants where united in demanding higher computer literacy among graduates (you know, to pull salaries down for IT work). These people have plenty of money with which to bribe the government, so, it doesn't stand to reason that the government would reject their concerns out of a desire to keep people stupid.
My first thought was that this had more to do with recent stories we have been reading about how cell phones are super-distracting to kids, and are even being banned in the classr
Re: (Score:3)
You're tying yourself into a pretzel trying to come up with a line of reasoning even half as compelling as the plain interpretation. And the rationale you went with is bad even by Trumpain FCC standards.
Re: (Score:3)
> I thought that the tech giants where united in demanding higher computer literacy among graduates (you know, to pull salaries down for IT work). These people have plenty of money with which to bribe the government, so, it doesn't stand to reason that the government would reject their concerns out of a desire to keep people stupid.
It's perfectly reasonable if your objective is to reduce social mobility. We can't have those poor people getting good jobs!