6 minute read
The UP and UPload
Idaho’s fight for educational internet access
BY HARRISON BERRY
In 2019, the Heritage Orchard Conference, held at the University of Idaho’s Sandpoint Agriculture Center, brought nearly 100 people to the facility near Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint, Idaho. There, presenters discussed best practices for the amateur apple-grower, and local efforts to identify and preserve the more than 16,000 named varieties of apple known to grow in the United States.
Apples + apples = internet access + rural education
PHOTO SOKMEAN NOU
“We have an apple called a Strawberry Parfait that has strawberry notes to it. Another has a melon flavor. A lot of these are never going to be commercially grown … but a lot of these apples could have disease resistance that could be used in a modern breeding program. It’s definitely important work that’s being done,” says Sandpoint Agriculture Center Superintendent and Orchard Operations Manager Kyle Nagy, who hosts the conference.
The next year, in 2020, the University of Idaho connected all of its extension campuses to broadband internet. When it went online, the Heritage Orchard Conference drew more than 1,200 virtual attendees from 49 states and 18 countries. Among them was John Bunker of the Maine Heritage Orchard, a legend in the orchardist community and a personal hero of Nagy’s. Broadband internet has in living memory gone from a luxury to a necessity. In the area of education, it’s a determining factor in whether children have access to learning materials and even their instructors — or, in the case of the Heritage Orchard Conference, between niche regional interest and a high-profile international audience.
Idaho ranks 39th in the nation when it comes to broadband access, and there are significant hurdles to improvement. The Gem State is largely made up of public lands and rural areas; building state-of-the-art infrastructure is pricey, and some areas are serviced by just a handful of internet service providers (ISPs). Though more than 70% of the Idaho population has access to quality broadband, many areas of the state do not meet the national standard 25MB/3MB download/upload speed. According to Microsoft, there may be more than 123,000 Idaho K-12 students living in households not using the internet at broadband speeds.
A political consensus behind internet expansion for students has been building for years, but a past experiment with education technology ended in failure. In 2008, Idaho lawmakers were told that the Idaho Education Network (IEN), a broadband network connecting Idaho schools coupled with a huge investment in classroom technology, wouldn’t impact the state’s general fund. Six years later, a judge tossed out thecontract that enabled IEN, leaving taxpayers on the hook for tens of millions of dollars and ultimately shuttering an early attempt at bringing Idaho classrooms into the 21st century.
As the need for educational internet access increased, the collapse of IEN put Idaho students still further behind students in other states. At $7,833, Idaho spends less per student than nearly every state in the country, and poor rural Idaho students have one of the steepest achievement gaps compared to their rural peers in the nation. If the internet is central to education, and education is central to important future outcomes, Idaho has a lot of catching up to do.
The pandemic quickly revealed deficiencies in Idaho’s statewide network. Before, school had filled a secondary but significant role as a place where students went while their parents worked. Suddenly, online learning shared literalbandwidth with parents who were also working from home, often on unstable, expensive, or substandard internet connections.
“People have been talking about broadband for years, but the pandemic focused everyone’s attention. I’ve heard from county commissioners who say their kids don’t have access to online learning because of broadband,” says Eric Forsch, broadband development manager for the Idaho Department of Commerce’s Idaho Broadband Advisory Board.
An aerial view of the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center
PHOTO MICHAEL BOREN
Formed at the recommendation of Idaho Governor Brad Little’s 2019 Idaho Broadband Task Force and established via House Bill 127 in 2020, the Idaho Broadband Advisory Board funnels state and federal money into internet infrastructure projects. In a short period of time, it has funded dozens of individual internet service expansions, including connecting the University of Idaho’s extension campuses. So far, it has disbursed $10 million in funds to qualifying projects. Modeled on Idaho’s system of water boards and subject to legislative oversight, the Idaho Broadband Advisory Board sidesteps the executive branch-level practices that led to the demise of IEN while ensuring that federal grant dollars are spent in accordance with guidelines. Started with $35 million from the Idaho Legislature, it boasts significant financial resources, including a $10 million CARES Act grant, and works alongside numerous other high-dollar programs aiming to extend and improve internet access in Idaho.
That influx of federal funds, however, could be a source of political friction for some legislators. Many lawmakers are skeptical of the obligations that come with federal money. Others are concerned that federal grants may not be reliable, long-term resources. Representative John Vander Woude (R-Nampa) is the chairman of the Broadband Advisory Board, and he belongs to the latter camp, warning that using federal funds at such a scale could raise eyebrows in the Idaho Legislature. Political hurdles, however, don’t change the need to continue fighting for more, higher quality, and less expensive broadband access, he says. The internet has simply become indispensable.
“If all the kids are back in school, that doesn’t stop the need for there to be broadband. We’re focusing on education, but when the pandemic’s overand kids are back in school, I hope we don’t say we don’t need this infrastructure, this broadband, anymore,” Vander Woude says.
When IdaHome spoke with Kyle Nagy, he was in the middle of the latest Heritage Orchard Conference, which was being held online, and the number of participants and listeners-in was already on track to meet or beat 2021. Attendance, however, isn’t just a number: It’s a measure of the spread of ideas and research — the lifeblood of universities.
Expanding broadband to the Sandpoint Agriculture Center has made it an Idaho internet success story that many interested in the future of education in the Gem State hope to repeat — not to mention a hub for orchardists and the conservation work being done to identify and recover apple varieties.
“This is now something that people all over the world are familiar with and getting information from. It’s grown far greater than I ever anticipated it would,” Nagy says.
