COVID Turned Internet-Poor Remote Learning Into ‘Very Dire’ Issue, Says Meng

About 12 million U.S. students pre-COVID “were in households without adequate internet access,” Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., told an Axios webinar Friday. In her travels around the country, Meng met “one too many kids who were unable to do their homework at home,” she said. “Much of the assignments, unlike when I was a kid, are given online or completed online.” When the pandemic hit, 55 million students were “not able to physically go to school, and many were not able to do their homework,” she said. It suddenly became “a very dire and time-sensitive issue,” she said. The Moving Forward Act (HR-2) would establish a $2 billion grant to localities for lending devices and hot spots to needy students, said Meng, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we are trying to figure out the fastest and the most efficient ways” of getting relief to students in need “without having to reinvent the wheel,” she said. It would allow students to “get online as soon as possible” after the legislation is signed, she said. It has bipartisan support and the backing of more than 50 organizations, she said.