Education inequality is a problem found throughout the United States and North Carolina, with one place suffering more than others being rural and low-income areas. In North Carolina, while the state has seen rising enrollment, there has been a 20% drop in rural teacher employment, with other low-income communities having similar problems. Pre-school education is also hard to come by in low-income communities in North Carolina.
Online education, just from my personal experience, is less engaging than in person. With the ability to turn off a camera and work on your computer or phone, it is really tempting to do homework for other classes or surf the web rather than pay full attention to the class. Furthermore, the platform is not as conducive to asking questions. However, this isn’t just my view. A study from the Boston Globe found that one-third of high school students learning remotely feel they are falling behind in school, but only 8% of students going to school full time in-person feel the same.
Not only does online education have issues with keeping students up to date with their studies, but also the fact that online education itself is built on the need for internet connection. Unfortunately, broadband connections can be prohibitively expensive, with prices up to $299.95 in parts of Alaska, Virginia and Kentucky. In Washington, North Carolina, you could pay up to $250 for internet access, and in rural places like Chatham County, you only have a speed of five megabits per second, which is far below the 25 megabit minimum that is needed for basic broadband. This is a problem. To put a finer point on it, in my hometown of Mount Olive, a neighbor of mine was told he would have to pay over $1,000 to get the infrastructure necessary, and it would require building a metal tower to be able to receive broadband internet to his house.
After hearing this, it would be reasonable to ask what can be done? The current Biden administration has pushed for elementary schools to open back up five days a week, which fixes the online education problem for elementary schools, but not so much for high schools or colleges. For that problem, we need legislators here in North Carolina and at the federal level to invest in broadband internet for our rural areas. Luckily, North Carolina legislators have decided to make accessible broadband a priority this year, but unfortunately, they have not given enough funding to the Growing Rural Economy with Access to Technology (GREAT) grant, but lawmakers are promising more funding soon, so call your representatives and push for increasing the GREAT grant.
One of the major problems in rural and low-income communities in North Carolina is retaining high-quality teachers. A big reason for this is that teacher pay in North Carolina is 30th in the country, and the Republicans have dismissed a raise in teacher pay. Education is a major way to raise generations out of poverty, but to do that, we need to make working as a teacher in North Carolina a more competitive job, and we need to increase GREAT funding so that, in the present, people in rural communities can get basic online education.
