Maine’s Connection Across the Digital Divide

Maine just took one step closer to bridging the digital divide. Starting this fall, Maine’s middle school students who receive free or reduced-priced school lunches will be eligible for free home Internet connections.

The program will benefit eligible students who participated in an initiative launched in 2002 by then Governor Angus King that supplied approximately 35,000 free iBooks to every seventh and eighth grader and some high school students across the state.

“Over the past three years we have clearly seen the impact that [the laptop program] has had on our students through increased access to information and research,” says King. “However, some of our students have not had the opportunity to continue their learning outside of school because they lacked access to the Internet at home. We’re now working to remedy that situation and to help these students gain that access.”

King raised about $800,000 for the Internet program through the nonprofit Maine Learning Technology Foundation, which he hopes will keep the 7,000 low-income kids eligible for the program connected with dial-up access for two to three years. Great Works Internet, based in Biddeford, ME, is providing the dial-up access at cost—about $8.33 a month, says King. And even those middle school students not eligible for the free connections, but who are part of the original iBook program, can sign up for Internet access at the reduced fee.

Educators agree that the digital divide remains a major concern. Approximately 13 percent of all teens in this country between the ages of 12 and 17 still do not have Internet access, according to a report released in September by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Additionally, 32 percent of all the teens surveyed say they do not use the Internet at school. Pew suggests that school machines might be old, have filtering software that makes them difficult to use, or be rarely available to students. That point is one King uses when explaining why he pushed for the home Internet program. “My vision was technology would be an integral part of the learning process and not an adjunct,” he says. “But it’s not going to be part of the process if the computers are down the hall and available just once a week.”