Digital Equity Act Would Provide $250M Annually to Address Digital Divide – By Emily Tate, EdSurge

Proponents of digital learning, as well as those committed to closing the nation's “homework gap,” rejoiced on Thursday when the U.S. Senate introduced a bill that would invest hundreds of millions of dollars to expand broadband access in communities that currently lack it.

Most Americans who cannot access the internet on a daily basis come from underrepresented and historically marginalized communities, including individuals with disabilities, from low-income backgrounds and those living in rural areas. The same holds for U.S. students without home internet access, many of whom are now expected to use digital learning every day to access class materials and complete homework assignments.

The Digital Equity Act of 2019 would create two new annual grant programs—one formula grant, one competitive—of $125 million each, to be distributed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The grants would seek to help all 50 states, along with Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, create and implement digital equity plans, launch digital inclusion projects and support evidence-based research to measure the effectiveness of both.

Purpose as Well as Paycheck – By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Inside Higher Ed

A new report from Gallup and Bates College shows most students want to find a sense of purpose in their work, but they aren't always succeeding.

Recent college graduates want “purpose” in their jobs, but they aren’t always finding it, according to a new survey.

The report, "Forging Pathways to Purposeful Work," from Gallup and Bates College, found that 95 percent of four-year college graduates nationally considered a sense of purpose at least moderately important in their work. (Note: Gallup conducts some surveys for Inside Higher Ed, but this publication was uninvolved in this study.)

But of the graduates who strongly felt that a purpose was important, only 40 percent said they had found a meaningful career. Only 34 percent indicated they were deeply interested in their work, and 26 percent reported that they liked what they were doing on a daily basis.

“This ‘purpose gap’ is a glaring problem for the younger work force, as millennials place a higher priority on purpose in their lives than previous generations, and they look to work more than other sources to find it,” A. Clayton Spencer, president of Bates, said in a statement. “The purpose gap is also a challenge for employers because of a strong correlation between employees’ purpose and engagement and an organization’s bottom line.”

Michigan schools ban Grubhub and other food deliveries during school day – By John Wisely, Detroit Free Press

Instead of packing lunches, many high school students now pack their cellphones, ordering food delivered to their school with apps like Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber Eats.

The deliveries have become so frequent and disruptive that many schools have banned them. 

"It was getting to the point where you'd have eight, 10, 15 deliveries a day," said Pat Watson, principal at West Bloomfield High School, which recently reminded students to knock it off. "It's a building policy: You can't have food delivered during the school day."

Other schools have done the same thing.

"We view it as a safety concern," said Diane Blain, spokeswoman for Chippewa Valley Schools in Macomb County. "Having strangers and people that we don’t know coming to our buildings with delivery bags, we just don’t allow it."

Blain said the district's Dakota High School banned the practice about three years ago, and its other high school, Chippewa Valley, followed suit.

Some schools have policies explicitly prohibiting it. Others frown on it, but don't formally ban it. All of them say the practice has exploded with cellphone use and the proliferation of delivery services.

New bill would require California colleges to let homeless students park overnight – By Emily Deruy, San Jose Mercury News

For many college students, academics are an afterthought.

And it’s not because they’re bent on partying or other socializing.

It’s all about survival.

According to several recent surveys, around one in five — or about 400,000 — California community college students has experienced homelessness in the last year. Thousands more are at risk of becoming homeless.

Calling that number “shocking, alarming and tragic,” Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, on Tuesday outlined a new bill — AB 302 — that would force community colleges to allow homeless students to sleep inside their vehicles in campus parking lots overnight.

“Shame on us if we turn our backs on these students and choose to ignore them,” Berman told reporters in Sacramento.

While acknowledging the state’s long-term need for more affordable housing, the assemblyman said homeless students need help right now. In 2016, the state passed a law requiring the colleges to give homeless students access to campus shower facilities.

“This bill is the next logical step,” Berman said. “We should do everything we can to make their situation a little better.”